The First Year Journal of Remus J Lupin
by razlahan
Summary: The daily journal of Remus Lupin's eleventh year of life, covering his first year at Hogwarts. Which is to say, 'exactly what it says on the tin.'
1. September 1, 1971

**AUTHOR'S OPENING NOTE:**

 **Once again, and as always, in the spirit of Albus Dumbledore, everything I want to say is in the chapter's end note.**

September 1, 1971

I'm writing on the train to Hogwarts now. I got up this morning to discover that mum had gone all out for breakfast: bacon and sausages both, eggs, toast with butter and strawberry jam, sweet buns, milk and orange juice and a banana; I don't want to think about what it cost, but it was delicious. I got dressed in my school robes, said goodbye to mum, who gave me a packed lunch for the train, and reiterated my promise to write her once a week as she made sure my hair was straight and my robes were smooth, and gave me a kiss goodbye. Dad took my trunk then and ahold of my hand and side-along we apparated to Platform 9 and ¾, promptly at 10:30 in the morning, just as the train arrived in station. It was painted a shiny bright red and looked fantastic. There were only a handful of other people there in the station.

"The first carriage belongs to the prefects," dad says, "But you can sit wherever else you like."

I've only been on a train a few times in my life before and was excited. "I'll take the caboose," I told him, "I want the last compartment, in the very back."

Dad laughed. "Why?" he asked.

"So I can see the rest of it ahead of me from the window," I said.

Dad agreed and we headed for the last car. The last compartment was available, so dad loaded in my trunk. "I can stay for a while if you like," he said, "Although parents don't generally stay on the train."

"It's alright," I said. "I'll be fine." I was nervous, but there was nothing he could do about it. Making him stay wouldn't help.

"Alright," Dad said. He paused for a moment and then added, "You know, it's okay to come home if you don't feel safe or if you don't think you can do it. You can come home any time and I'll teach you what I can myself. I won't feel bad about it."

"Right," I said. It made me no less nervous.

"And remember," he added, just making it worse. "Whatever you do, don't tell anyone about… your secret. You'll have to come home if anyone finds out."

"Right," I said.

He pulled a couple of sickles out of his pocket and handed them to me. "This is for lunch," he said, somewhat more cheerfully. "Get yourself a pumpkin juice and something sweet for dessert. And remember that I love you and have fun."

"I love you, too, dad," I said.

"The train should arrive at Hogwarts around seven-thirty," he said. "Good luck."

With that, he left. I watched out the window as the other students arrived with their families. There were so many of them and seeing them made me even more nervous. I've not spent any time around other wizarding children, not since I was infected. I could tell who the older students were; they ran to join up with their friends and those already wearing robes sported their house crest on their chest instead of the school's. The first years, or the ones I picked out as first years, seemed more hesitant and nervous. There were owls and cats and all sorts of animals. The adults were in all sorts of different colored robes. Dad wears robes to work, but they're always black or navy or somber colors like that. But there was every color imaginable on the platform. Some students had tearful goodbyes with their parents while others ran for the train as soon as they reached the platform. There was enough to watch to keep me occupied for the hour.

The train left the station promptly when the clock over the entrance to the platform struck 11:30 and the last few students lingering there raced to get aboard as the engine started to move. I watched the platform slip away and then London. We're in the country now. I wonder if- Hold on, there are people coming into my compartment now.

Later

It's nighttime now and I'm in my dormitory as school, but for the sake of the narrative, I feel like I should pick up where I left off.

I was writing in my journal, nearly an hour from the platform when a girl entered my compartment, a boy following behind her. The boy was in shabby robes. Mine are second hand and look like it, but his looked more like they were third or fourth or fifth hand, faded and visibly patched and stained. The girl was in jeans and a flowered shirt.

"Do you mind if we join you in here?" she said. "All of the other compartments are full and we had to leave the one we were in." They were both dragging their trunks behind them.

"Sure," I said, hastily tucking my journal back into my own trunk. "Do you need help with those?" I asked about their trunks.

"If you don't mind," the girl said, as she struggled with it. She had bright red hair, brushed shiny, while the boy's was black and unkempt looking.

I easily lifted her trunk up onto the rack, then the boy's. He didn't look happy about it, but didn't say anything either.

"Thank you," the girl said for both of them. "My name is Lily, Lily Evans, and this is Severus Snape."

"I'm Remus Lupin," I said. I was glad the boy had an odd name, too. Over the years, I've become used to introducing myself as John to muggles, who always thought my first name was too odd.

"Nice to meet you, Remus," Lily said, taking a seat. "I'm sorry to barge in, but there were some boys in our last compartment trying to pick a fight and we decided to leave."

"Why were they trying to pick a fight?" I asked.

"Severus said he wants to be in Slytherin and one of the boys there said he wants to be in Gryffindor and decided to make an issue about it. Apparently there's a big rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin, which is ridiculous, because none of us are even sorted yet, but he started calling Sev names and so I decided we should go before it got worse," she told me.

"I think it's a little silly that they sort students at all," I told her. "All it seems to do is create rivalries, from what I'm told."

"All I know is what Sev has told me," she said. "He wants me to be in Slytherin, too-"

"You will be," he said, finally speaking.

"But," she continued, "I don't know how good of a fit I'd be there. What about you? Where do you want to end up? I mean, since they're going to sort us, after all."

I shrugged. "My father was in Ravenclaw," I said, "But it doesn't really matter to me that much."

"My parents are muggles," Lily said. "Sev's mum was in Slytherin, but his dad is a muggle, too."

Severus frowned when she said it.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "My mum's a muggle, too."

"Ravenclaw doesn't sound bad," Lily said. "I wouldn't mind being sorted there. And it's the only one I've ever manage to get Sev to admit that being sorted into wouldn't be awful, if he couldn't be in Slytherin."

"I'd probably fit best in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, I think, from what my dad has told me," I said.

Severus snorted then. "You know that Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are opposites, right?" he said, speaking directly to me for the first time. "Ravenclaw is for the really smart students and Hufflepuff is for the dumb ones."

"My dad says that's just a stereotype," I told him, "And there are plenty of really talented former Hufflepuff students. Besides, the bits about loyalty and conscientiousness and tolerance and fortitude don't sound half bad."

Before he could argue it out, though, there was a knock at our compartment door and a witch opened it up. "Anything off the trolley, dears?" she asked.

"No, thank you," Lily said, but I stood up.

"Yeah," I said. "I'll have a pumpkin juice and a chocolate frog, please."

I traded her my sickles for an ice cold pumpkin juice, which felt good to hold on the slightly warm train, and a boxed chocolate frog.

"If you need anything else, dears," she said, "You can find me at the front of the train."

"Thank you," I said.

"I didn't think to ask my parents to trade some quid for pocket money when we were in Diagon Alley getting my things," Lily said. "I'll have to remember next time. But it's okay, I brought my lunch." She stood on the seat to reach the rack and pulled a bagged lunch from her trunk.

"So did I, for the most part," I said, holding up mine.

The boy turned pink.

"Do you not have a lunch?" I asked.

The boy turned a darker shade, red now, and shook his head. "It's okay," he said.

I thought for a moment. "I'll share mine," I said. "We've got another seven hours or so before the train reaches the school. You'll starve between then and now."

Before he could object, I took my sandwich, cut neatly in half, and handed him the bigger portion. "It's turkey," I said. "Take it. My mum makes good sandwiches."

He took it and mumbled something that might have been thanks.

"Oh, Sev," Lily said, as she took a peeled orange from her sack and divided it in half, passing part of it to Severus as well. "Did your mum forget to pack it?"

Severus shrugged and took the orange. "I've got some carrots, too, if you'd like some," I said, holding the baggie of baby carrots out to him.

He reached out and took a handful. "Thanks," he said audibly but begrudgingly this time.

We ate quietly until I got to my chocolate frog, which immediately tried to hop away as soon as I opened the package. I caught it nimbly and Lily laughed. "Oh wow," Lily said, delighted, "I've never seen anything like that before."

"It's a chocolate frog," I said, as it struggled to get away. I promptly bit off its head, causing it to stop. Lily laughed again. "It's enchanted of course." I quickly chewed and swallowed the head, delicious chocolate, and then looked in the package for the card. "They come with collector's cards," I told her, glancing at mine. "I've got the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, this time."

"Can I see it?" she asked. I handed it over to her. "The picture moves!" she said.

"I told you wizard pictures move," Severus told her.

"But I've never seen it before!" she said.

"I've got more, if you want to see them, too," I told her. I liked her enthusiasm.

"Please," she said.

I shoved the rest of the frog in my mouth before it could melt all over my hands and climbed up to my trunk and riffled through for the cards. "I don't have a lot," I said, once I'd swallowed. "We don't have a lot of money to spare for things like this," I admitted. "But I've got all of the Hogwarts founders but Helga Hufflepuff, pluse Merlin, Queen Maeve, Ptolemy, Andros the Invincible, Falco Aesalon, Cornelius Agrippa, Fulbert the Fearful, Gifford Ollerton, Mospus and Newton Scamander."

I handed them to Lily and she shuffled through them, reading. "Wow," she said.

In a sudden fit of generosity I told her, "You can have one, if you want."

"Really?" she said.

"Yeah," I told her.

She started over in the deck, rereading, obviously looking for the one she liked best, while Severus tried to look over her shoulder while not looking too interested. "You can have one, too, if you like," I told him quickly.

I didn't have to tell him twice. He quickly pulled Salazar Slytherin from the deck, setting me back one more on the founders. Lily remained indecisive for a moment and then picked Queen Maeve.

"Thank you," she said, although Severus didn't bother, just slipped the card in the pocket of his robes.

"How do you two know each other?" I asked.

"We live near each other," Lily said.

"We met in the park two years ago," Severus said intensely. "She was performing wild magic, flying off of the swings. I knew she was a witch and so I told her about it, all about magic and Hogwarts and everything. I knew she'd get her Hogwarts letter. She was already so talented, able to control it like that."

Lily blushed. "I don't know any real magic, though, like spells or anything."

"It's okay," Severus said. "You'll learn."

"Severus already knows so many spells," she said. "Do you know any?"

I shrugged. "My dad taught me a few," I said. "Nothing major."

"I've read all of the textbooks," she continued. "I hope that I'll be ready."

"You'll be fine," Severus reassured her.

"I tried to read the textbooks," I told her. "I got through Magical Theory and History of Magic just fine and loved the Defense against the Dark Arts book. I mostly just skimmed the others, though. Except the potions text," I laughed. "It was like Greek to me."

"Severus knows all about potions," Lily said.

He didn't need any more prompting than that. "My mum's a potioneer," he said. He then launched a long monologue which seemed to cover all of the basic points and a few of the major points of potion making. I understood maybe a quarter of it. Maybe if we stay friendly, though, he can help me with my potions homework. It doesn't seem likely, as we were sorted into different houses, but that's getting ahead of myself.

The talk of potions eventually drifted into talk of classes in general and then what sort of magic each of them would like to learn, with mostly Lily talking at that point and me just chiming in when I needed to. Severus didn't seem to open to volunteering what sort of magic he'd like to learn in front of a stranger and it made me wonder if he had more reasons for wanting to join Slytherin house than just his mum. Eventually Lily segued into how her family reacted to her being a witch. Apparently she has an older sister who isn't a witch who is very upset, because she wanted to come to Hogwarts and learn magic, too, but couldn't. Lily is upset that her sister is upset with her, but Severus just shrugged it off. He didn't seem to want to talk about his own family. I listened to what my dad told me and tried not to volunteer much of anything at all.

Finally, the sun started to get lower in the sky. "Do you have the time?" I asked Lily, who wore a watch.

"It's seven," she told me.

"You might want to change into your robes," I told her. "We'll be at the school in half an hour."

"Right," she said. "Where should I change?"

"You can do it in here," I said. "Severus and I can step into the corridor."

"Okay, great," she said.

Severus and I stepped outside. At the front of the car, there were older students being rowdy, but it was quiet in back. "Are you happy to be going to school?" I asked Severus, to break the silence.

"Of course, I am," he said in the same fierce tone he used when speaking of his meeting with Lily, which I wasn't sure was happiness or desperation. "Aren't you?"

"Yes," I said. "But I'm nervous, too. I didn't know if I would be able to come or not for so long." And then I stopped, having already said too much before stepping off the train.

"Why wouldn't you be able to come?" Severus said, curious about me for the first time.

"My mum's really sick," I mumbled, throwing in my pre-planned excuse for going home all the time at the get go.

"Oh," Severus said, effectively ending the conversation. We waited quietly until Lily opened the door. I noticed first that her robes were a crisp, deep black, obviously brand new, unlike mine or Severus'.

We arrived in the station in Hogsmeade a few minutes later. "Do we take our trunks?" Lily asked as we heard the other compartments emptying ahead of us into the corridor.

"I don't think so," I said.

"No," Severus said. "The house elves will get them and deliver them to our dormitories once we're sorted."

"What are house elves?" Lily asked.

"Elves," Severus said, "They cook and they clean and do laundry and stuff like that. Mostly only rich people keep them in their houses, but Hogwarts has hundreds of them."

"Wow," Lily said.

I followed them as the drifted into the corridor and off the train.

"First years, over here," a huge man called once we were on the platform. "First years, this way."

"Wow," Lily said, "Look at him!" The man was at least ten feet tall with a wild beard and hair. "Who is he?"

"I don't know," Severus said, sounding a little nervous seeing him.

The older students headed off to the right, where horseless carriages waited. I followed Lily and Severus towards the man, off to the left.

"Is this everyone?" The man asked. He looked around, seemed to decide that all of the first years were accounted for and then continued. "My name is Rubeus Hagrid," the man said. "I'm the assistant game keeper here at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and today I'll be taking you up to the school. Follow me."

He set off and the crowd of first years followed. Lily grabbed my wrist to keep me close and pulled me along with her and Severus. The man, Hagrid, led us to the edge of a lake. On the other side of the lake, there was the school. The sun was setting beside it, making a pretty sight. "Ooooh," Lily said, seeing it. She wasn't the only one. Many of the students seemed to be impressed. Even I was impressed and I've seen the school before. There were a dozen boats lined up at the end of the lake. "Come along then," Hagrid said. "No more than four to a boat."

Lily pulled me forward, to the nearest little wooden rowboat. I noticed she had Severus by the wrist as well. No one else joined us. "I guess I'll row?" I said, but as soon as I did, the boat lurched away from the shore and began to row itself. Lily laughed in delight.

"You know," I said, "I've always wondered what's underneath the lake. My dad says there is a giant squid."

"Really?" Lily said.

"Yeah, I heard that, too," Severus said.

The boats took us across the lake to the castle, where we entered through a sally port low on the lake. There were large wooden doors not far inside. Hagrid knocked loudly and they opened, with a rather severe looking middle aged woman on the other side. "Thank you, Hagrid," she said.

"Good luck everyone!" Hagrid called before heading back to the boats.

The woman in front of us looked us over critically and then said, "Welcome to Hogwarts. I am Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Head of Gryffindor House, and Professor of Transfiguration. If you follow me, please." She turned and strode away, not looking to see if we followed or not, but something about her demeanor said that we had best follow.

She lead us to a small room, with a door on both sides, one that we came in through, the other through which I could hear the buzz of hundreds of voices. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly," Professor McGonagall, "but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory and spend free time in your house common room. The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours. The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarted yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting. I will return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly."

With that, she slipped out through the other door, the buzz of voices growing louder momentarily before she shut it again.

"Oh wow, I'm so nervous," Lily said, brushing off her perfect robes, before brushing at Severus' and mine, without being prompted.

"It will be fine," Severus said. "You'll see."

After a few moments, Professor McGonagall came back into the room. "Line up, please," she said, "And follow me."

Lily pulled me and Severus towards the queue, placing one of us on each side of her and when the line was formed to her satisfaction, Professor McGonagall led us to the Great Hall. The first thing I noticed were all of the students watching us, seated at the four house tables. The second thing I noticed was the ceiling, wondrously enchanted to show the night sky. We were on a dais, the staff table behind us. Headmaster Dumbledore sat at the center. I caught his eye for a moment and he gave me a small smile. In front of us, there was a small stool and on that stool, there was a ragged looking wizard's pointed hat. Promptly, the hat began to sing. It sang a song about the sorting and the houses and the traits of the houses and such things and I noticed that many of the other first years were shocked by the singing hat.

When it finished, the sorting began. A boy named Eridanus Altair was first. Professor McGonagall called his name, he sat on the stool, she put the hat on his head and then after a moment, it called out "Ravenclaw!" The Ravenclaw table cheered, while everyone else clapped politely. Professor McGonagall moved through the list, alphabetically. It went smoothly until a boy named Sirius Black was called. He went to the sorting hat and nearly as soon as it was on his head, it called out, "Gryffindor!" Surprisingly, the Gryffindor table didn't cheer and there were hisses from the Slytherin table. Sirius Black nearly skipped over to the Gryffindor table, though. Lily was the first of the three of us from the train to be sorted. She stepped forward, took her seat and Professor McGonagall slipped the hat on her head. There was a moment of deliberation and then the hat yelled out, "Gryffindor!"

"Oh no," Severus groaned, now beside me.

I became more and more nervous at the list slipped towards L. "Lupin, Remus!" Professor McGonagall called finally. I went forward and sat on the stool and she placed the hat on my head. It was too large and slipped over my eyes, blocking my view of the great hall. Then suddenly, there was a voice in my head. "Well, well, well, you are an interesting one, werewolf," it said. "It's rare to find a student who would do well wherever I put him. You have the intelligence, the curiosity, the thirst for knowledge of Ravenclaw, the conscientiousness and loyalty of Hufflepuff, the cunning, even the ruthlessness of Slytherin. But you, you're going to need all of the courage that you can get, aren't you? And you'll get it in _Gryffindor_."

The last word echoed in my ears and also across the great hall. The Gryffindor table clapped loudly, although there were few cheers. I suppose I'm not much to cheer for. I wonder at the logic of that hat, though. Sort me into the house that I have the least traits to go with? What nonsense is that?

"Over here, Remus," Lily called as I approached the table. There was space cleared in the middle, flanked on both sides by prefects, that the first years were gradually filling out. I sat next to Lily, across from the boy named Sirius Black. I gave him a small smile and a nod, while I noticed other people at the table still giving him unfriendly glances. "What's that about?" I asked softly.

"The whole rest of my family is in Slytherin," he laughed.

"Ah," I said.

The sorting continued. Several girls joined us and then we got into the P's and another boy, short and chubby, named Peter Pettigrew got sorted in Gryffindor as well. He was followed by a boy named James Potter. Lily hissed when his name was called. "That's the boy from the train," she said. The hat called out Gryffindor before it was even fully seated on his head.

He joined us, sitting between Sirius and Peter, right across from Lily. "Good job, Pete," James said to the chubby boy. "I didn't think you had it in you." Then he looked to Lily and smirked. "Not joining your pal in Slytherin, then?" he said. She gave him a dirty look.

The sorting continued. Professor McGonagall reached Severus Snape and he was promptly sorted into Slytherin, nearly as promptly as James was sorted in Gryffindor. The Slytherins slapped him on the back, but he shot a longing look over to Lily. There was another big reaction to the name after him, "Stark, Eleanor." The common room went abuzz and I realized that she must be Meriton Stark, the murdered Auror's daughter. She was also sorted into Gryffindor. In all, we ended with ten of us, six girls and four boys in the house. When the sorting was done, Headmaster Dumbledore made several announcements, including introducing a new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Etollius Gamp. He didn't look particularly friendly, but I suppose fighting the Dark Arts isn't a friendly thing. The prefect beside me muttered, "That's a different one every year that I've been here."

The food came next, tons of it. I couldn't decide, so I went with both pork chops and beef wellington plus mashed potatoes and green beans and chips. When the main course was done, it switched over to an equally fantastic table full of desserts. I took both chocolate cake and raspberry sherbet. In the meantime, the other three chattered excitedly with each other, while Lily talked to some of the other girls and me and the prefects. "Remus," she said, "There are ghosts! Do you see the ghosts?"

The prefect beside me, a fifth year named Brandon Tintagel said, "Each house has a ghost. Ours is Nearly-Headless Nick."

"Nearly-headless?" Lily asked.

"Yes, well, apparently someone tried to chop off his head and botched the job of it," Brandon said.

When the feast was over, the first years followed Brandon to the Gryffindor common room. It was up in a tower, behind the portrait of a fat lady. The password was "Lionhearted." "Girls' dormitories are up the left stair, boys are up the right. First years will be the very first landing," Brandon told us once we were in the common room, which was filled with comfortable looking red upholstered chairs and couches as well as several small tables for studying and a large fireplace. "Your trunks will already be up there. Breakfast starts at seven," he added, "In the Great Hall. Don't be late, because you'll get your class schedule there. The first period of classes starts at eight. The house elves will switch the crests on your robes over to Gryffindor tonight if you leave them out. Best get up there now and pick out your beds."

The other three boys raced ahead, up the stairs. "Good night, Lily," I said, holding back.

"Good night, Remus," she told me. "I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow."

"Okay," I said.

I headed up the stairs. The dormitory had four four-poster beds in it, with red hangings. Red and gold are the Gryffindor colors, of course. The other boys had already claimed their beds. My trunk was waiting by the door and I took the last bed remaining, on the end, closest to the bathroom. Sirius Black was next to me, then James Potter, with Peter Pettigrew by the door. Sirius was sitting on his bed, pulling his robes out from his trunk. Like Lily's they were all crisp and new. So were James' and Peter's. He looked up at me when I sat my trunk down at the foot of my bed.

"Remus Lupin, right?" he said.

"Right," I answered.

He pursed his lips and thought hard for a moment. "Lyall Lupin's your father?" he asked then. Apparently he'd been trying to place me. "Researcher for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures? Mum's a muggle?"

"Yeah," I said. "How'd you know that?"

"My father's got his book on boggarts," Sirius said. "Says the whole Lupin line is full of awful blood traitors, but he knows more about boggarts than any man alive." I frowned and the other boy quickly caught the insult in his statement. "Those are my father's words, not mine," he said. "I don't think that."

I thought for a moment, pulling in my knowledge of magical history. "Any relation to Damocles Black?"

He laughed. "Yes," he said. "I can claim history's least popular Minister for Magic as an ancestor. I've got the least popular Headmaster of Hogwarts, too."

"I see," I said.

James Potter called him over then, though. I set to getting my things ready. I pulled out the picture of my parents and my alarm clock and put them on my bed side table, my parents smiling and waving at me from the picture, tucked my chocolate bar inside the drawer there, put a roll of parchment and a fresh quill and a bottle of ink in my school bag to be read for morning and then laid out my school robes over my the foot of my bed for the house elves to change the crests overnight. Since the other boys looked like they would be talking for a while, I think pulled out my toiletries, towel, and pajamas and went for a shower. I brushed my teeth, came back in my pajamas, laid out the set of robes I'd been wearing and pretended to go to sleep, tucking my bed hangings around me. The other three boys talked for over an hour. Apparently James and Peter have known each other since they were toddlers, they grew up near each other, but James doesn't seem to think much of Peter, who, admittedly, from their conversation, doesn't seem to be exceptionally brave or bright. For all that Slytherin is known as the house that stresses blood purity, all three of them are purebloods. James and Sirius are also apparently quite wealthy. James seems like he's very spoiled. I think perhaps my father was right about the arrogant bit, too, for Gryffindors. James more than once declared himself a paragon of Gryffindor virtues and that he'd be the best wizard since Godric Gryffindor (he 'graciously' told Peter that he could be his sidekick) and went on and on about how he was going to be the best at everything in school. I waited until their voices died down and one of them put out the candles to take out my journal and write this by wand light.

I'm not sure how I ended up sorted in this house.

 **AUTHOR'S END NOTE:**

 **I like the idea of Remus starting out in the orbit of Lily and Severus and slowly transitioning from associating with Severus to associating with James, Sirius and Peter, for a variety of reasons, so that's what I'm going with. I think it fits very well to cannon (from what we actually see of the characters themselves, rather than other people's rather biased descriptions of them) that Severus is generally unfriendly to anyone but Lily, due to a lifetime of not fitting in/only having one friend, and that James is a spoiled bully with an ego the size of a house. James will improve with time and the ameliorating effects of other people's company, as often happens with spoiled children, while Severus will get worse due to a combination of James' abuse of him and his exposure to radical pro-Dark Arts and anti-muggle sentiments in Slytherin. My sympathies are naturally with Severus, although Remus will eventually chose James' side, for entirely selfish reasons. I never thought that James was the kind of person that Remus would have a natural affinity for, though, and I'm going to write it that way. I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's opinion on that matter, though, so if you have something interesting or enlightening to say on the subject, please include it in the reviews.**

 **Yes, I realize that in cannon, it was Damocles Rowle, not Damocles Black. I like him better as a Black.**

 **If you have anything to say, good, bad or indifferent, I'd be happy for reviews.**

 **Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE ON THE MODIFICATION OF THIS STORY:**

 **This story initially began on Remus's birthday (Which I changed to August 6th, or rather, had initially decided was August 6th, for the purposes of him both being born on the full moon and having the full moon reoccur on his eleventh birthday, before JK Rowling put out the character's birthday officially. I decided I liked my version better and kept it that way.) and the first chapter was ten thousand words worth of the twenty-five days that came before him going to Hogwarts. Unfortunately, they were a very slow ten thousand words, mostly setting up details for later, which, from the reader stats that provides, 90% of readers didn't make it past. I decided to delete the first chapter therefore, and go ahead and start the publication on September 1st. I may publish the first twenty-five days separately later, in case anyone is interested in slogging through it.**

 **To summarize what happened, though, for those of you who are not interested:**

 **Remus received a journal for his eleventh birthday from his mum, which he promises to write in every day. His father is opposed to the idea of a journal, because writing down the whole werewolf things seems like a terrible idea to him, but he relents to his wife and instead puts a whole bunch of spells on it so no one but Remus can open it or read it. Since I made the full moon on his birthday, he also had a transformation at the time. He visited Hogwarts with his father to become familiarized with the preparations made there for the full moon. He also received advice from his father on school, including warning him away from both Slytherin and Gryffindor (as he was a Ravenclaw himself, at least in my version, I don't recall if JK Rowling ever specified and Slytherin and Gryffindor are always notoriously at odds with each other), telling him to avoid both pranksters and bullies, advising him to pick a Quidditch team to pretend to support, as many boys his age are obsessed with Quidditch and he doesn't want him to stand out (He picks the Caerphilly Catapults because Dai Llewellyn was their most famous seeker and the bit ward that saved his life when he was attacked as a child was the Dai Llewellyn ward.), and also to avoid making close friends, because people won't notice you're missing if they don't miss you, and to finally, never under any circumstances let on that he's a werewolf. His father also taught him several spells, including Lumos, Nox, modifications to make Lumos brighter or dimmer, the Emergency Flare Spell and Expelliarmus. Besides that, there was some on his mum being ill, lots of book reading (The Lord of the Flies and Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea are the ones that come up again later, I believe) and watching television. Also, there was a recount** **of a few Ministry worker disappearances and the murder of an Auror, one Meriton Stark, all unsolved over the preceding spring and early summer.**

 **AUTHOR'S ORIGINAL FIRST CHAPTER END NOTE:**

 **I've had this in my head since I read the Harry Potter books as a kid. It was** _ **mostly**_ **in line with cannon then, but as JK Rowling has put out many details about the books since then, it no longer lines up quite as well, since I changed to her details where I preferred them and kept my own where I liked them better (starting with his birthday, as I wanted the date of his birth both out of the school year and on the night of the full moon, and moving on from there).**

 **The focus is, of course, on Remus, although I've tagged Sirius, James and Lily, too, as they're the most major frequent reoccurring characters. I've rated T for infrequent (in terms of the daily entries, it might be more frequent in terms of chapters) violence. For those of you who favor content warnings, there will also be regular descriptions of bullying and infrequent bad language, as well as very infrequent objective pondering of the issue of suicide (which I would consider unavoidable if I were a werewolf). If I keep going past first year, romances will eventually be included, but not yet. They're only eleven after all. If I keep going past the first year, the rating might also go up to M for subsequent stories.**

 **I, of course, own nothing that belongs to JK Rowling, although I made up some of the supporting characters and details myself. I particularly filled in details of wizarding culture and society as I saw fit, extrapolating from what was available in the original books.**

 **I am American, so while I've tried to use British words where I can, I imagine that I mostly fail. I tried my best to make things historically accurate to real life, though, so I have, for example, followed a 1971 and 1972 calendar for reference, along with Wikipedia's recollection of the historical events of those years, including current music and movies and such, as well as the BBC's archive of their televisions schedules (which is to say, to the best of my ability, everything Remus watches on television was actually shown on that day in history).**

 **There will literally be a journal entry for every day, as Remus promises his mother in the beginning, so things may be somewhat slow at points (although I'll try to make it as interesting as possible; things will pick up once he gets to Hogwarts [NOTE: ALL ENTRIES BEFORE HOGWARTS HAVE NOW BEEN OMITTED]), and also, this will end up very, very long. I have this written up to November 4 at the time of publishing the first chapter. It is currently 100,000 words long. Be warned. Some postings will be longer than others, put together however I feel like making the chapters.**

 **Also, because this is so long, I've only done a once over for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and so forth. I did a good faith effort with that once over, but I know that I have missed many corrections that I might have made. I chose to continue writing instead of doing a more extensive edit. I don't want to hear about it, either. If it bothers you, just tell yourself that most people don't edit their journals. If you have anything else to say, however, good, bad or indifferent, I'd be happy for reviews. If there is interest, I'll update regularly.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	2. September 2, 1971 to September 3, 1971

**AUTHOR'S OPENING NOTE:**

 **Once again, and as always, in the spirit of Albus Dumbledore, everything I want to say is in the chapter's end note.**

September 2, 1971

I woke up early this morning to get to the Great Hall in plenty of time to get my schedule and have a good breakfast. I made my bed, got dressed and made sure I had everything else I needed. James and Peter were just getting up when I left, while Sirius was still fast asleep. "Are you going to wake him up?" I asked as I headed for the door after checking to make sure my robes looked neat in the bathroom mirror. The Gryffindor crest now stood out brightly in red over my heart.

"I tried," James said with a shrug. "He just rolled over and said to give him a few more minutes."

"Right," I said, returning the shrug.

I grabbed my school bag and headed out and down the stairs to the common room, where Lily was waiting for me. "Are you ready for our first day of classes?" she said excitedly.

"Ready as I can be," I said. Together, we headed down to the great hall. There weren't many students there yet and we had our pick of places at the table, which was piled with food. I had eggs and toast and a good five people's worth of bacon. Professor McGonagall came around to our table and gave us our schedule. "I'll see you two promptly after breakfast," she said. And there, true enough, was Transfiguration first period on our schedule. It was followed by History of Magic, then there was a break before Defense against the Dark Arts, followed by lunch, another break, then double Herbology with Hufflepuff, with Astronomy after dinner, and after dark, at nine o'clock.

"Look at all of the classes we have today," Lily said. "No Charms until tomorrow, though. I'm looking forward to Charms. We've got Potions tomorrow with Slytherin, too! Sev will like that."

"Good," I said. "Maybe I can get his help."

I spotted Brandon Tintagel and flagged him down. "Hey," I said, "Do you mind telling us how to get to our classes?"

"Sure," he said, taking my schedule. "Transfiguration is on the second floor: take the main staircase right up and to the left, to the east corridor. It'll be the third door on the left. History of Magic is on the fourth floor. Go up to the third floor on the main staircase, turn right and catch a ride on the moving staircase when it's headed across the hall, opposite of the main stair, one floor up. You'll turn right there, take the first hall you come to, fourth door on the right. There's also a back stair that you can take, if you follow the left hand corridor outside the great hall all the way to the end, it'll be on the right. Take it up to the fourth floor, then backtrack to the History of Magic Classroom, although it will be third on the left that way. It's a bit out of the way, but avoids the moving stair, so some people prefer that route. Defense against the Dark Arts is on the third floor this year; you can get there from the main stair, take the left hand corridor and it'll be third on the right. Herbology is out on the grounds. Go out the main entrance, take a left, follow along the build and around until you see the greenhouses. First years should be in green house number one. Then Astronomy is up in the North Tower. Take any stair you like up to the fifth floor, unless you're coming from the common room, in which case you're already there, then catch a corridor north and anyway you go, it'll dead end at the tower stair. You can spend your breaks either in the common room or the library, which is on the main staircase side of the fourth floor. I'll tell you where to go tomorrow, too, you'll never remember how to get to those classes on top of these. Did you get all that or do you want me to go over it one more time?"

"One more time, please," I said, taking careful note of it as he repeated everything he said. I wrote it all down here, too, in case I forget it over the weekend. When he was done, Lily and I thanked him and he went to join his friends. James and Peter came in just after seven-forty, as Lily and I were finishing. "Where's Sirius?" I asked them.

"He didn't ever get out of bed," James said, with a shrug.

"But…" I said. "He'll miss the first day of class."

James laughed. "Yeah," he said, like it was no big deal. I was a little bit shocked. I looked to Lily who was getting up. "I'm gonna go talk to Sev for a few minutes before we go to class," she said, pointedly ignoring James.

"Okay," I said. "Look, I'll meet you in class, okay? I've got to go back up to the dormitory."

"Sure," she said. "I'll save you a seat."

I looked at the clock. I could make it if I ran. So that's what I did. I grabbed a napkin off the table, filled it with toast and ran. As soon as I was clear of the great hall and the entrance way, I went from a fast pace to a supernaturally fast pace, my werewolf blood lending me speed. I went straight up four flights on the main stair, hung a right and turned into the Gryffindor common room, calling out the password on approach. There were only a few people in the common room. I slowed down but kept running past them. I heard a few chuckles. "First years running late," someone muttered. I took the stairs to the dormitory. Sirius was still sleeping. I grabbed his shoulder and shook him awake. "Sirius," I said. "Sirius, wake up."

"Not now, Kreacher," he muttered, his eyes still closed. "Tell Mother I don't want to go to breakfast." I wondered who Kreacher was, but didn't let it distract me.

"Sirius, it's Remus," I said. "Wake up now. You've got to hurry or we're going to be late for class."

His eyes popped open then. "Oh crap," he said. "What time is it?"

I glanced across at my alarm clock. "Seven-fifty," I said. "We have Transfiguration in ten minutes and I don't think we want to keep Professor McGonagall waiting. I brought you some toast," I added handing him the napkin. "Get dressed, fast as you can."

"Crap," Sirius repeated, shoving two slices of toast in his mouth at once with one hand while unbuttoning his pajama top with the other. I grabbed his robes, from where he'd left them, the Gryffindor crest now bright and red and tossed them at him, then opened his trunk and started packing his school bag, since he hadn't bothered, while he got dressed. I packed his Transfiguration and History of Magic books, then, for good measure, grabbed mine for my bag, too. He ran for the bathroom while I anxiously watched the clock. "Come on," I said when he came out, while shoving his packed school bag at him, "We've got to run." I looked at the clock; we only had three minutes left.

I shoved his school bag at him and we ran, out of the dormitories, out of the common room, ignoring the people in it laughing at us, through the portrait and down the hall. "Slow down," he said behind me. I was running too fast for a boy I noted and slowed, but realized at that pace, we'd never make it. I looked over the rail. The moving staircase was swinging underneath where we were, just a floor below. I only hesitated, thinking I was insane, for a moment. Then I called, "Follow me," and vaulted over the rail. There was a moment in the air I thought I'd surely kill myself this way, taking a ten foot drop onto a staircase, a moving staircase, of all things, but I landed on my feet, unharmed and Sirius touched down beside me just a moment later. We ran down the stair. Someone on the landing across, where the staircase was going, yelled, "Are you crazy, you could have broken both your ankles!" I glanced back. It was an older student, maybe one of the other house's prefects. "Keep running," Sirius muttered. I couldn't agree more. We ran, hitting the third floor, then turned for the main stair.

"I see why you made it into Gryffindor," Sirius told me, through heavy breathing.

"This isn't courage," I said back, "It's an unnatural sense of punctuality. I inherited it from my father."

"Right," he answered.

"Hopefully Professor McGonagall has your schedule for you," I told him as we hit the second floor landing and turned for the appropriate corridor. "You can't sleep in so late, you know."

"Sorry," he said. "Not used to getting up in the morning. Kreacher always brings me breakfast in bed, if I put him off for too long."

"Who's Kreacher?" I asked.

"House elf," he huffed. "Horrid thing."

Getting breakfast in bed didn't sound horrid to me, but I wasn't making an issue of it. I was counting doors in my head, stopping at the third door on the left. "Right here," I said. I opened the classroom door. Everyone else was already seated. Professor McGonagall gave us a stern look. "You are very almost late," she said. Above her head, the second hand on the clock above her head just turned to eight. "Take a seat, don't keep us waiting."

"Right," I said. "Sorry professor." There were two rows of five seats in the class. Lily was sitting in the front row right next to the door and as she said, she'd saved the seat next to her for me. The one next to it was open as well, with James and then Peter finishing out the row. I took the seat next to Lily and Sirius took the one next to me. "Thanks," he muttered as he passed. "Any time," I told him. Lily gave me an encouraging smile as I took out my things for class.

Professor McGonagall didn't hesitate going in for a complicated set of notes on the basics of Transfiguration. Beside me, I noticed Lily getting frustrated. When class was over, I asked her what was wrong. "This quill," she said. "I'm terrible with it. I keep smudging my notes and getting big blots everywhere and my handwriting is atrocious. Why can't wizards use pencils?"

"Probably because wizards don't make pencils," I said. "The manufacturing is rather more complicated than you'd think it would be and there are, of course, certain factions who'd never buy from muggles."

"Ah," she answered.

"I can help you with it between History of Magic and Defense against the Dark Arts," I offered. "My dad taught me early this summer, after I got my letter. I always used pencils doing my lessons with mum, too."

"Thanks," she said.

We headed up the stairs towards the History of Magic class. The other three Gryffindor boys trailed behind us, following us to class, I think, while Sirius loudly regaled James with how we'd jumped the staircase.

"You didn't actually jump the off the fifth floor overlook, did you?" Lily asked.

"Might have," I said noncommittedly. She shook her head. "What?" I said. "We were going to be late."

We made it to History of Magic, which is, of all things, taught by a ghost, called Professor Binns. As it happens, he's a very boring ghost. The classroom was warm and Professor Binns spent the entire period droning at the blackboard, which was disappointing, because I had had high hopes for the class. As it was, James, Sirius and Peter were all asleep inside of twenty minutes and I'm fairly certain that I'm the only person who managed to spend the entire class period taking notes, and that was mostly aided by the fact that I've already read the textbook and could fill in the parts I tuned out on my own. Even Lily was in and out of paying attention, more frustrated by her quill than absorbed by what Binns was saying about the formation of the Ministry of the Magic, which, I thought, was a strange place to start with the History of Magic. Are we doing modern history first and then we'll cover earlier stuff another year or what? He even gave out an essay on the reasons for the development of the Ministry, right at the end of class, which the other three boys found highly disappointing when they woke up. They were complaining about it loudly as Lily and I left, heading for the library, where I helped her master the use of the quill. She'd been holding it wrong and putting on too much ink, but we had it sorted out by the time Defense against the Dark Arts came around, so that by the end of it, her penmanship was legible again. "You can make fresh copies from my notes for the last period of Transfiguration and History of Magic," I told her.

We headed off for Defense against the Dark Arts then. Professor Gamp was stern and intense, speaking about how the events of the summer, with the disappearances and the murders, only served to prove how much we all needed to learn Defense against the Dark Arts and that it was unfortunate that first years were only supposed to learn the principles, rather than actual defensive spells and strategies, but that he'd do what he could in teaching to prepare us. The room tensed when he spoke of the murders and I think everyone in the room tried very hard not to look at Eleanor Stark. Professor Gamp didn't, though, he actually gave an acknowledging nod to her when he said it. Then he went into a lecture on some of the basic definitions of the dark arts, dark wizards, dark creatures, curses, and so forth. I was able to answer several of his questions (I could have answered all of them, but dad told me not to show off) from my readings and note taking over the summer and he gave me five points to Gryffindor for it.

We headed to lunch and along the way, I asked Lily, "What's Eleanor Stark like?"

"Why?" she asked.

"I don't know," I answered. "It must be rough for her coming to school after her father was murdered this summer, having everyone staring at her and talking about it."

"I guess," Lily said. "I don't know what she's like. She hasn't really talked to any of us yet."

"Right," I said.

There was a very nice honey ham at lunch, but I made sure to get vegetables and bread, too, as I told my father I'd eat more than just meat and dessert. After lunch, we went back to the library, Severus coming with us. Apparently Lily had agreed this morning to do so, when they compared schedules while I was fetching Sirius. Severus didn't look happy for me to be coming along. I didn't want him to think that I was trying to encroach on their friendship, so I sat one table over, telling them I was going to start my History of Magic essay while they caught up on telling each other about their first day of classes. We had Herbology after that, in the greenhouses. The teacher, Professor Sprout, is the head of Hufflepuff house. She went over a bunch of basic gardening techniques, weeding and pruning and that sort of thing, which didn't interest me much, as I've often helped in our garden at home, well, at least in our last house, where we kept beds going, so I knew all of that already. I was able to demonstrate the proper techniques for pulling up a plant and getting the roots, too, and was awarded five points for Gryffindor. James rolled his eyes at me when it happened. I'm not sure why. After that, we went back to the library, joining Severus again, where I finished my essay and then reviewed my Transfiguration notes before dinner. We went to the common room after dinner, where Lily copied my Transfiguration and History of Magic notes.

Sirius came over when we were almost done. "Did you manage to get the History of Magic notes?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I told him.

"Can I borrow them for the essay?" he asked him.

"Why didn't you take your own?" Lily asked him.

"Why didn't you?" Sirius answered.

I headed them both off, taking the notes from where they sat in front of Lily and handing them over to him. "Sure you can," I told him.

"Thanks," he told me.

"Any time," I answered.

Lily huffed. "I didn't get the last couple of sentences," she said.

"It's okay," I said. "I remember what I wrote. I can just tell you." I dictated the last few lines of notes to her and then we went up to our respective dormitories to switch out our things for astronomy. Up on the North Tower, Professor Astor told us that we'd be starting easy this year, with the moon. The moon was high and bright overhead, nearly full. "Can anyone tell me what phase the moon is in now?" she asked.

I raised my hand quickly and she called on me. "Waxing gibbous," I told her.

"Good," she said. "Take five points for Gryffindor." James Potter giggled as she said it. I don't know what he thinks is funny. I'm fairly certain it's a good thing to have gained fifteen points for my house over the course of the day. I held back from answering any other questions for the rest of the class, though, even though, as it happens, the moon is a subject that I know intimately.

We're in the common room now. I waited until the others were asleep to shower and write this. It's really late now, though, so I'm going to sleep.

September 3, 1971

I woke up early again this morning, to be sure that I had everything ready for the day. Sirius was still asleep when I left, but given that our day starts with two free periods, I figured I'd let him have a lie-in and bring him breakfast myself if he didn't make it down. I met Lily in the common room, we went down to breakfast, loaded up our plates and ate while waiting for Brandon Tintagel to show up to give us directions. He did, so that we learned that charms is also on the third floor, this time in the right hand corridor, third door on the right (it's easy to get from Charms to Defense against the Dark Arts, anyway), and that Potions is down in the dungeons, if you take the spiral stair that's past the door to the left of the main stair down and make two left turns, it's the second to last door.

Lily was excited. "I can't believe we're going to be learning our first spell today!" she said. "I was talking to Marla Allard, one of the second years, this morning while I was waiting for you in the common room and she said that the Charms professor always starts straight in with the levitation charm on the first day!"

"That's great," I said. "It's not my first spell, of course," I pointed out, "But I don't know that one. Yet," I added.

She grinned at me.

James and Peter wandered into the Great Hall sleepily, just before breakfast was about to start, with no sign of Sirius, but I'd rather expected that. "I told Severus I'd meet him in the library first period; we both have it free," Lily said. "Do you want to join us?"

I didn't think Severus particularly wanted me to join them, he was frowning at the two of us from across the great hall. "No thanks," I said. "I need to get a few things done."

"Will you join me second period?" Lily said. "If you don't mind helping me start my History of Magic essay? I want to get it done before the weekend. Sev has Transfiguration second period."

"Sure," I said. "I'll be there."

She went over to the other side of the great hall to join Severus, while I could hear James muttering something that sounded rather like, "house traitor," as he watched her with narrowed eyes. I ignored him, grabbed a plate and loaded it down with toast, eggs, and bacon. I wasn't sure what Sirius liked, but these seemed like safe enough choices. I took the plate and a fork for the eggs and headed up to the dormitories. Sirius was still in bed, but the smell of food was enough to rouse him.

"Good morning," I said, as he sat up, looking at me blearily.

"Thanks," he said, as I handed him the plate. "I'm not late am I?"

"No, we've got two periods until Charms," I said.

"Well then, you could have let me sleep longer," he said.

"Then the food would be cold," I pointed out.

"You could always learn a warming charm," he suggested.

I laughed. "You can sleep in Tuesdays and Fridays," I told him, "And all weekend if you like. But Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, you really have to get up for Transfiguration."

Sirius laughed. "Yeah," he said, "Professor McGonagall doesn't seem like she'd take too kindly to tardiness."

"I don't think so, no," I said.

"Well," Sirius said, "For future reference, for Tuesdays, Fridays and the weekends, some orange juice would be nice." I wasn't sure if he was joking or not, but I laughed anyway.

"The gratitude I get," I said.

"Yes, well," he said. "I'm spoiled."

He didn't look like he was getting out of bed anytime soon, so for good measure, I laid out his school robes and packed his school bag for the day. He didn't seem to mind me going through his trunk. Everything he owned, I noted, was much nicer than my own things. Jealousy isn't a virtue, though, I noted.

"Where is everyone?" Sirius asked as I clasped his bag shut and he finished the eggs.

"James and Peter were just arriving in the great hall as I left," I said. "I'm headed to the library."

"See you later," Sirius said.

"Yeah," I answered. "Don't be late for Charms. It starts at ten."

Sirius laughed, "I'll try," he said.

I left the dormitory and headed for the library, waving to Lily and Severus at their table as I came in but not joining them. Instead, I went for the stacks, hoping to find something good to read for the weekend, provided I didn't get any homework in lessons later in the day. Given that I'd spend part of the weekend laid up as a result of being a werewolf, I figured werewolves were a good place to start. After some searching, I found A Comprehensive Exposition of Lycanthropic Studies, which was large enough to bludgeon someone to death with and seemed a bit above my reading level, but was the most thorough seeming book available. I also found A Primer on Werewolves, since it seemed like a good idea to start with the basics as well. I checked them out, trying to look as unsuspicious as possible, the tucked them into my school bag where no one could catch a look at them. Then I wandered idly through the stacks, scoping out what other kind of information the school might have to offer, until the bell rang and I went to join Lily to help her with her History of Magic essay. We got that started and I helped her build a rough outline of what she wanted to write, but we left the library early to ensure that we would get good seats for Charms. We were the first to arrive. Lily wanted to take front and center, so I went along with it, sitting beside her in the second to last seat from the end in the first row of five. The other students wandered in as it got closer to ten, with Sirius, James and Peter taking up the middle of the back row, leaving the girls to fill in around them. I ended up with Eleanor Stark on my left, but she didn't say anything, mostly spending the lesson looking out the window out on the ground. She didn't even bother with the spell and Professor Flitwick didn't seem inclined to challenge her over it.

Marla Allard's information was correct, Professor Flitwick did spend the lesson on the levitation charm, wingardium leviosa, starting only with a brief explanation and a demonstration of the correct pronunciation and wand movements before distributing feathers and allowing us to dive in. The spell wasn't especially difficult. Lily got it first, on her third try; she was so pleased. It took me seven or eight tries, but I got it within ten minutes of starting practice. Sirius and James both got it as well, as did Marlene McKinnon, but Joan Hutchins and Mary McDonald only managed to get their feather to bounce a bit and Peter and Noreen Fitzherbert didn't manage anything at all. As I said, Eleanor Stark didn't even attempt. Professor Flitwick told those of us who got it during the class period to keep practicing, trying to get it higher. Apparently it takes experience with the spell to get it to go higher and to lift heavier objects. We made a bit of the competition out of which of us could make it onto the ceiling first. None of us managed, but Sirius got it closest. Professor Flitwick said not to worry, though, for those who didn't get it, we'd continue practicing to develop the spell over the coming week and there was still plenty of time.

It was right across the corridors from there to Defense against the Dark Arts again, where Professor Gamp told us that now that we'd covered the basic definitions, we'd be spending the next several weeks covering the historical development of the dark arts and defense against the dark arts, so that when we covered the concepts more thoroughly later on in the year, we'd have historical case studies to work from. Behind me in class (Lily and I were in the front row again), I heard James Potter groan and whisper, "But we already have History of Magic three times a week." Professor Gamp must have heard him, because he declared loudly, "If you don't know history, Mr. Potter, you don't know anything." A few of the girls snickered. James kicked the back of my seat. I don't know if it was meant for me or if he just wanted to kick something, though. It was irritating, but I chose to ignore it, because Professor Gamp started straight into his lecture, starting with Herpo the Foul in ancient Greece, one of the first recorded practitioners of the dark arts, a parselmouth who was credited with both creating the first Basilisk, which is a giant, intelligent snake with deadly venom which can kill a man with a look, made through the unlikely formula of hatching a chicken's egg under a toad, and with inventing Horcruxes, which are apparently objects created to store portions of an individual's soul, rendering them effectively immortal, although it requires murder to carry out. Professor Gamp didn't go too greatly into specifics on the last bit, saying those were seventh year lessons. It was all very interesting, though, I took lots of notes.

We had lunch, then a free period which I used to drop off my library books in my trunk and switch out my morning class things for my potions supplies and to skim the first chapter of the potions text to try to be somewhat better prepared for class. I lost track of time somewhat in reading and was nearly late for class. I realized a few minutes before two that it was a few minutes before two and ran for it, my werewolf legs luckily being fast enough to take me even to the dungeons in time. I was one of the last to arrive, though, and it was a double class with Slytherin, and the seating was in pairs, each at a work bench, so Lily was already sitting with Severus when I got there. Several people in both houses, but particularly James Potter looked less than pleased about that. I was wondering where I was going to sit when Sirius waved me over. "You sit with Pete," he told James, "I'll sit with him." James frowned at this suggestion but went with it, the four of us taking the two benches in the row behind Lily and Severus. Eleanor Stark ended up seated with the least intelligent looking of the Slytherin girls, but she looked like she cared about that just about as much as she cared about charms. Anyway, James was awful. The Potions Professor spent the class period going over basic techniques in cutting, stirring, pouring, heating and so forth having us practice at our tables with basic ingredients from the supply closet. James put his new found levitation charm to use, though, when we were supposed to be practicing, by making whatever implement that Severus was supposed to be using, his knife, stirring spoon, vials, even his ingredients levitate just out of Severus's reach overhead while Professor Slughorn's back was turned, dropping them whenever the Professor looked or came around, so that he kept clucking and going, "Mr. Snape, do try to keep up," whenever he checked Severus' progress, sounding especially disappointed because Severus had answered many of his questions so far. James, Sirius, and Peter all found it exceptionally funny, snickering into their hands whenever Slughorn came around. Severus was livid by the time we were halfway through the class, when it was finally time to set our cauldrons to boil.

"Can anyone demonstrate the correct way to add liquid into a boiling cauldron?" Professor Slughorn asked then.

Hesitantly, I raised my hand. I knew how, and I hadn't answered any other questions over the course of the day, in any of our classes, so I went for it. Severus' hand was also in the air again, but Professor Slughorn called on me. "Mr. Lupin," he said, "Do show us." Everyone turned to look at me, so I stood up and demonstrated, carefully pouring a liter of liquid from a large beaker into my boiling cauldron.

"Very good, Mr. Lupin, very good. Where did you learn that?" Professor Slughorn said.

"My mum, Professor," I said.

"Oh, is she a potioneer?" the Professor asked.

"No," I said. "She's a muggle. I bake with her sometimes, though."

"Is she any good?" he asked with interest. Professor Slughorn, I should add, is quite round.

"I think so, sir," I said. "Her chocolate cake especially."

"You'll have to have her send me some," he answered. "Take five points for Gryffindor, now…" He moved back to the front of the class, to talk about techniques for stirring when adding ingredients to a mixture. When his back was turned, something hit the back of my neck and landed in the collar of my robes. I reached around and found the head of one of the caterpillars we'd chopped up earlier in the class. I looked around and saw James snickering at me. "Suck up," he hissed. I added the caterpillar head to my own pile and decided to ignore him. Professor Slughorn set us to adding our caterpillar parts and then stirring 49 times both clockwise and counterclockwise which took a bit of time. While Professor Slughorn was in back, explaining to Noreen how she was stirring wrong, James called to Severus, "Hey Snape, best be careful leaning over that potion. Wouldn't want the grease from your hair to drip in and mess it up!" Now, admittedly, Severus does look like he could use a good hair washing and trim, but still, it was uncalled for. Severus hissed back, "I wouldn't lean over my potion if I were you at all, four-eyes. The steam might fog up your glasses." James made an offended noise, drew out his wand, and threw a hex at Severus' back. It wasn't a very good hex, but it was enough, knocking into Severus' back and pushing him forward, into his boiling cauldron. His hands hit the hot metal and liquid splashed all over his front and he cried out in pain, burnt.

Professor Slughorn came rushing over. "What's this?" he said.

"He had an accident," James said quickly.

"No, he didn't!" Lily cried. "James hexed him!"

"I did not!" James said.

He looked to Sirius. "I saw it," he said. "Snape tripped."

Peter quickly chimed in with, "Yeah!"

Professor Slughorn looked to me. Lily gave me a hard look. Beside me, Sirius stamped lightly on my foot. I looked down at my cauldron. I felt guilty, but I said, "I don't know what happened, Professor. I was concentrating on counting my stirs."

Severus didn't say anything but curses muttered under his breath, while he fought back tears, holding his hands against his chest.

"Give me your wand, Mr. Potter," Professor Slughorn said. Reluctantly, James handed it over. Professor Slughorn muttered an incantation and a bit of smoke came out of his wand. I couldn't make sense of it, but apparently it made sense to the professor. "That will be thirty points from Gryffindor," he said, waving the smoke away. "Plus detention after dinner tonight, Mr. Potter, and after lunch tomorrow and after lunch on Sunday as well."

"But Professor!" James objected.

"I'll hear no argument about it," Professor Slughorn snapped. "Mr. Pettigrew, Mr. Black, you can take five points from Gryffindor apiece for lying to me and join Mr. Potter for detention tonight as well." He turned to Severus. "Mr. Avery," Professor Slughorn said, calling one of the other Slytherin boys, "Will you please assist Mr. Snape in heading towards the hospital wing?"

"Yes, Professor," the boy said, quickly leading Snape away. "I'll have a word with you boys after class as well," Professor Slughorn added to the James, Sirius and Peter. He proceeded with the lesson after that, but we didn't get very far before the bell rang. I packed my things up and left, as Sirius went to join James and Peter up front.

Lily was waiting for me outside the door. "What was that?" she demanded.

"What?" I asked.

" _I don't know what happened, Professor_ ," she mimicked me.

"Yes, well, I have to live with those guys," I defended myself. "I don't want them to kill me while I sleep."

She made an offended noise, but seemed to accept this, because she turned to head out, still talking to me, with the assumption that I'd continue walking with her. "What is wrong with those guys? They were picking on Sev all period and then hex him when he called James 'four-eyes'. Forty points from Gryffindor and detentions for all of them and it's only the second day of classes. Sev was really hurt! I think I'm going to check on him in the infirmary. Do you want to come?"

"No," I said, "Best if I don't. I can't imagine he's pleased with me and anyway, I need to write a letter to my mum and dad. Tell him that I hope he's okay, though."

"Right," Lily said. "Can you take my school bag up?"

"Sure," I said. We parted ways at the main stair, where I headed up and she flagged down an older student to ask for directions to the hospital wing. I already knew where it was, but couldn't tell her that. I dropped Lily's bag with Marlene McKinnon, who said she'd leave it on her trunk, dropped my own bag in my own trunk, saving a piece of parchment, my quill and ink and then penned a letter to my parents. I wrote the good stuff: I made a new friend on the train, a muggleborn name Lily, who ended up in the same house as me when I was sorted into Gryffindor, that I'd already learned a new spell, levitation, and that I wasn't sure at the moment whether my favorite class was Charms or Defense against the Dark Arts. I also mentioned that Professor Slughorn had asked for a sample of mum's cake. I left out all of the bad parts, not wanting to lessen the miracle of my being able to attend school at all in their eyes. As I was finishing, James, Peter and Sirius entered the common room.

"I can't believe I got three detentions over that little grease-ball," James complained as he came through the portrait. "It's unfair!" I'm not sure how or why he thought so, if anything, I thought the punishment was too light.

"Cleaning potion barrels with Sluggy, no less," Sirius complained.

"Besides," James added, "I practically did him a favor! He needed a little hot water to wash up with!" At this, Sirius and Peter both laughed. I didn't see what was funny. I kept my head down as they walked by, although, Sirius clapped me on the back as he walked by. "Good looking out," he said in passing, although James made a scoffing sound. I nodded, more at my parchment than them, and stayed put until they went up to the dormitories. Then I tucked my quill and ink into the pocket of my robes and approached a group of older students, maybe fourth years, sitting at a table nearby. I didn't want to interrupt, so I sort of lingered to the side until they noticed me. "Wotcher," one of the boys finally said. "Who are you?"

"Um, Remus Lupin," I said.

"Roger Hall," the boy answered. "What do you need?"

"Could you give me directions to owlery?" I asked. "Please?" I added.

His friends laughed at this. He just nodded. "Go straight out the portrait, hang a left, then follow the rail around until it heads south. It'll dead end at the entrance to the stairs to the south tower, owlery is at the top."

"Thanks," I said, but he'd already turned back to his friends, who were resuming their conversation.

I followed his directions south, to the owlery. Getting one of the school owls to deliver my note was a more difficult matter. As I've noted, animals hate me, owls included. My dad's owl is used to me, but he doesn't like me, and that's about it. Many started screeching and flew up into the rafters when I entered. Another took a dive at my head, missing my ear with her claws as I ducked by just hairs. "Come on," I begged. "One of you, please? I'm not going to try to eat you or anything." Finally, a large, dignified looking owl hopped down from its perch and walked over to me. It looked at me suspiciously, but allowed me to attach my letter to the leather ring around its foot. "Mary and Lyall Lupin, please," I told it. It gave the barest of nods, then flew off.

I headed back down, then, to dinner. Lily was already there. "How's Severus?" I asked, sitting down beside her.

"Madam Pomfrey's get a salve on his burns," she said. "She's releasing him in an hour. He'll be fine, she said."

"Good," I said, helping myself to several slices of ham.

"No thanks to James Potter, though," Lily added darkly.

"You're right," I agreed.

"He's a bully," Lily said.

"You're right," I agreed again.

We went on in this vein through the meal and afterwards, Lily went back up to the infirmary, while I went back to the dormitory, to start my reading on werewolves. I'll write more about that another time, though. I took a shower while the other three boys were still gone, changed into my pajamas and managed to write most of this before they came back. They all three flopped face down onto their beds when they came in though, not even bothering to change, despite the fact I could smell the pickled frog on them. Maybe it was my werewolf nose, though, and they didn't notice. Peter started snoring within a minute of hitting the pillow. It was quite late, I noted. Sirius turned his head and looked over at me. "Don't wake me up before noon tomorrow," he said. "And bring me breakfast, okay?"

I nodded but said, "Noon is lunchtime, Sirius."

"I told you, learn a warming charm," he answered. "I want eggs." Then he buried his face into his pillow. On the other side of him, James let off a frustrated scream into his. Things went quiet after that. It's past time that I went to sleep myself. I've been thinking, though. Dad didn't give me any strategies for avoiding a bully that you live with.

 **AUTHOR'S END NOTE:**

 **That's the first two days of classes. I've always thought it a bit odd that term seems to always start on September 1, no matter what day of the week that is, but I'm just rolling with it.**

 **Since I forgot last chapter, I took McGonagall's speech from the sorting more or less verbatim from the first book. It belongs to JK Rowling, as do most other things, of course. I figure that it's something McGonagall recites more or less from rote every year, though.**

 **I've chosen to characterize Lyall Lupin as both incredibly punctual and somewhat disaffected with the wizarding world. If the lives of you and everyone you love depended on you knowing the exact times of sunset and sunrise every night there is a full moon and acting accordingly, I imagine you'd eventually become compulsively punctual as well. If you felt the social ostracism that comes from having a werewolf son and (to a lesser degree) a muggle wife, I imagine you'd become somewhat disenchanted by the wizarding world, too. Let me know if you have thoughts on this issue, if you review; I'd be happy to hear them.**

 **Also, if you have anything else to say, good, bad or indifferent (except, of course, on the issue of editing errors: see my first end note for that), I'd be happy for reviews.**

 **Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.**


	3. September 4, 1971 to September 5, 1971

**AUTHOR'S OPENING NOTE:**

 **Once again, and as always, in the spirit of Albus Dumbledore, everything I want to say is in the chapter's end note.**

September 4, 1971

It was an interesting day. There was a buzz going around the common room this morning when I woke up. I heard bits and pieces of it, enough to gather the rumor was of murder, but given that I'm a new first year and so is Lily, we didn't have anyone to tell us what was going on. We went down to the great hall together for breakfast, hoping this would be clarified there. It was. Headmaster Dumbledore was standing on the dais, waiting for students to take their seats. We found a place quietly at the Gryffindor table and waited for him to speak. Notably, all of the school and house banners had been replaced with black.

"I have regrettable news to give you all this morning," he said, once the great hall was relatively full and quiet. "Yesterday afternoon, our former Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Peter Winkley, was found dead by members of Borneo's Magical Law Enforcement." There was a shriek somewhere from the Hufflepuff table, while the room broke out in a buzz. Some of the second year girls, I noted, started crying. I vaguely recalled the headmaster stating that the old Defense professor had left to study in Borneo when he introduced Professor Gamp at the welcome feast. The Headmaster waited until the tables were relatively quiet again and then continued. "Investigation is now under way by both the authorities in Borneo and in our own Ministry of Magic. I can say, however, that Peter Winkley was a good teacher and a good man, and that he will be sorely missed. If any of you need to talk to your Heads of Houses about what happened, you may, but it is important now, more so than ever, to continue on with providing you an education."

He seemed ready to sit down then, but an older boy at the Hufflepuff table shouted out, "My father works in Law Enforcement! He told me it was the Killing Curse!"

The Headmaster didn't to be disturbed by his shouting. "It looks that way, yes," he answered solemnly.

Then a girl stood up at the Ravenclaw table, a seventh year, wearing a prefect's badge. "Is it _him_?" she asked. "Is it the same one who has been killing people here?"

At the Gryffindor people, from the corner of my eye, I noticed people shooting looks at Eleanor Stark, who sat, as always, quietly, across the table from us. The Headmaster answered the girl just as solemnly as he answered the boy. "That has not yet been confirmed," he said. "But I suspect as much, yes."

A number of girls shrieked then and one of them wailed, "But we thought he was only going after ministry men!" There was a chorus of agreement and then someone called out, "Nobody is safe, then!" and someone else added, yelling, "He ran to Borneo and they still caught him!"

"Silence!" the Headmaster called out. The room went quiet instantly. "This is not the time for panic or for speculation. I assure you that you are all perfectly safe here at school. It would be best now, if you all finished your meals quietly and then did your best to enjoy this fine summer day."

He sat down at the high table and began his own breakfast and a dull roar of muttering spread across the room, with many girls, I noted, still crying. By the time the meal was done, there were all sorts of theories going around, but most of them seemed wildly implausible to me. "What do you think?" I asked Lily as I loaded up a spare plate with eggs, bacon and toast.

"I don't know," she said. "What are you doing with that?" she added.

"I told Sirius that I would bring him breakfast?" I said.

"Really?" she said, sounding offended. "He's a toe rag and you're not his servant."

I shrugged. "I know I'm not his servant," I said, "But I need at least one of the boys in our year to like me or I'm not going to make it through all seven years here alive. He seems to be the least bad of the three."

I made sure to grab a napkin and fork as well as a glass of orange juice and a glass of water to take with my, leaving my hands rather full. Lily did not offer to help, although she did get all of the doors for me on our way back up to the dormitory. "I didn't finish my History of Magic essay last night like I meant to," Lily said, "Since I was up in the infirmary with Sev. I think I'm going to do it now. Would you mind reading it over for me when I'm done?"

"Sure," I said. "Just let me take this upstairs." I paused for a moment before I went, though. "Would you mind doing me a favor, too, though?"

"What is it?"

"Would you ask Marla Allard if you can borrow her copy of The Standard Book of Spell, Grade 2? There's something that I want to look up and I've never spoken to her before so it would be awkward…" I trailed off.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Sure," she said. "Why not?"

She headed for her dormitory and I headed for mine. I left the plate on Sirius' bedside table. All three boys were still fast asleep. I covered the plate with the napkin, so bugs wouldn't get at the food, and left the orange juice, but I took the water back down with me, along with History of Magic textbook for good measure. Sirius still had my notes. Lily was waiting for me in the common room with her own book and notes and what she'd started on her essay, as well as a copy of the second year charms book. She handed the book to me as we found an empty table to spread out on.

"What are you looking up?" she asked me.

"The warming and chilling charms," I said.

"What for?" she asked.

"My dad is great with these things," I tried. "He can enchant a clothing to keep you warm or cool, depending on the season, and it stays on for years. I don't know how he does it."

"So you're going to enchant your clothes?" she asked.

"No," I said, starting to blush, I think, "My dad already did everything but my school robes and they don't take well to enchantment."

"Then what's it for?" Lily asked.

"Making sure Sirius's breakfast is warm when he wakes up," I admitted sheepishly.

"Are you serious?" she asked.

"No, he's Sirius," I joked. She didn't seem to find it funny, though. She just shook her head and opened her textbook. I opened the charms text and scrolled to the section on warming charms, read through it, then the part on chilling charms as well. When I thought I had a grasp of it, I began to practice on the glass of water. It took me several tries to get it, but after an hour or so, I had it to the point where I could get the water the temperature that I wanted it. I was going through rapidly: hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold when Lily finally finished writing and looked up.

"You know, things expand and contract as they're heated and cooled, right?" Lily said, watching me.

"I know," I said, not sure what that had to do with anything. "My mum taught me in science lessons."

"I mean," she said, "You're going to shatter the glass."

She had the timing of an oracle. Just as she said the word class, the thing cracked to pieces. She gave a small shriek and scrambled to get her books and notes and essay out of the way, while I grabbed my own textbook. It already looked like someone had soaked it through once, with the pages all waved out, it didn't need any more exposure.

One of the seventh years, looked up from several tables over, clucked, and then came over. It was the seventh-year prefect and head boy, I noted, Paul Howard. He just looked down at the table, sighed, waved his wand, and the whole mess of water and glass disappeared. "Next time be more careful," he told me.

"Right," I said. "I will be. Thanks." He headed back to his books without another word.

"Well, are you going to look this over or not?" Lily asked, holding her essay out to me. I took it, snagged a seat in a comfy chair, instead of at the table and began to read.

"It's pretty good," I said, "Except the Bellingham protests were in 1706, not 1705, everything else is all right. I included a section about parallelisms with the muggle government, too, but it wasn't in the lecture, so I think you'll be fine."

"Good," she said, relieved, taking the parchment back and fixing the one mistake. "I think I'm going to try to find Severus and see if he wants to take a walk around the grounds," she added. "Do you want to come?"

"No thanks," I said. I didn't think I'd be welcome by Severus, but also the full moon is tomorrow night and I don't feel much like walking. I couldn't tell her that. Instead, I made the excuse, "I checked out a book from the library that I want to read."

"What is it?" she asked. She's far too inquisitive by half, I think.

"Oh, just some background for Defense against the Dark Arts," I said. "Nothing major."

"Okay, then," Lily said. "I'll see you at lunch."

"Sure," I said, and headed up to the dormitory. All three of the other boys were asleep still. Since I had nearly three hours before I had to wake Sirius, I worked (successfully) to finish A Primer on Werewolves. It was very interesting, but I'll get into that once I've seen what the second book has to say. James and Peter woke up shortly before noon, got dressed and stumbled down to the great hall for lunch before James' detention. Once noon showed on my alarm clock, I cast a warming spell on the food I'd brought up, a chilling spell on the orange juice and shook Sirius awake.

"Thanks, mate," Sirius said, reaching for the plate once he'd emerged from his covers. He poked the eggs with one finger. "See," he added, "I told you to learn to warming charm." I laughed and then went down to join Lily for lunch. Lily went back to join Severus on the grounds after lunch, though, stating that it was too nice a day to stay in. I told her that I sunburn easily and headed back to the common room. Sirius was up and waiting when I got back. Peter was with him. I guess James had gone off to his detention.

"Do you have your History of Magic essay done?" Sirius asked me.

"Yeah, I finished it right after it was assigned," I said.

"Think you could help us?" he said.

"Sure," I said. "But you've still got my notes, you know, right?"

"Ah," Sirius said, blushing slightly, which I thought was odd. "Right, I'll go get those for you." He headed back to the dormitory and came back several minutes later, much longer than it should have taken, and when he handed me my notes, I could see why. There was writing in the margins, hastily scratched out with still wet ink. I couldn't make out most of it, but what I could see was quite rude. "Sorry about that," Sirius said sheepishly.

I chose to ignore it. "Let's grab a table then," I said. Slowly, I began to walk them through the essay. It was harder than it should have been, much harder than with Lily, because Peter, as I suspected, wasn't especially bright and also, he kept getting distracted.

"You know," he said randomly at one point, "Noreen told me that Bertha Jorkins told her that the old Defense professor was killed so that his murderer could learn the secrets of how to get into the school, so he could come after us here."

"Shut up, Pete," Sirius said. "I'm trying to write."

"Why would anyone want to come after us?" I asked.

"Because they're evil," Peter said, like this was obvious.

"Shut up, Pete," Sirius repeated.

"You know, you didn't strike me as being too incredibly serious about school," I told him. He gave me a dirty look. I caught myself. "That wasn't meant to be a play on your name," I said. "I swear."

I guess he decided that my use of the word 'serious' was innocent. He shrugged. "I'm not," he said, "But I've already been sorted into Gryffindor, which I'm sure I'll be hearing about any day now, and have had letters sent home about detentions and if I get bad grades on top of that, you won't being seeing me next year, because my parents will kill me."

"Right," I said.

"Now what did goblins have to do with this again?" Peter asked, not for the first time. Needless to say why, the essays ended up taking all afternoon to finish. When all that was done, we went to dinner, where Sirius and Peter at least ate in proximity to me and Lily peacefully and then we headed back to the common room. Lily wanted to ask one of the older girls about magic hair curlers and that wasn't a conversation that I wanted to join. Instead, I sat by the fireplace for a while, thinking, at least until James came in.

"He kept me through dinner," James practically shouted while entering. "Can you believe that? He had the house elves bring me up a sandwich. It wasn't even a good sandwich. It's a bloody crime." I wanted to point out that, no, what he'd done to Severus Snape, at least in an adult context, would have been a bloody crime. Dad told me not to draw fire, though, so I didn't. James reeked of dead things and preservative, I could smell him across the room. Maybe it was my werewolf nose, the night before the full moon, but it was bad. Instead of going to take a shower, though, he decided that he'd play a game of Exploding Snap in the common room with Peter and Sirius. I knew that exploding cards would make the wolf just about as happy as the smell of James Potter, so I made my exit for the dormitory, which is how I ended up here, writing this.

I've been thinking I need to focus, make a to-do list for the year, or maybe a goals sheet. I was reading through the rest of my journal entries earlier. So, here it is:

Remus John Lupin's First Year Goals List

1: Keep everyone from discovering you're a werewolf.

2: Learn all you can about werewolves.

3: Get at least straight E's in all of your classes.

4: Try not to alienate Lily.

5: Try not to alienate Sirius.

6: Try not to be murdered by or to murder James Potter.

7: Discover what is under the lake.

8: Learn about wizarding spy craft.

I'm sure I'll add to the list more as the year moves on, though. Anyway, the full moon is tomorrow night and I'm really tired. My bones hurt. I think I'm going to take a shower and go to bed.

September 5, 1971

The full moon is tonight. I went to breakfast with Lily, told her that I stayed up all night reading and was too tired to do much, brought up breakfast to Sirius, and since then I've spent the day indoors, doing some reading out of my second werewolf book, only coming down for my meals, although I didn't eat much. I never eat much before the full moon. I'm always hungry then, but I feel a bit queasy, too, so I avoid it, just in case. It's bad enough to be a werewolf without being a vomiting werewolf, too. Anyway, I made it through a significant portion of the book by skipping over the details of the procedures for many of the studies and such, where I couldn't understand anyway, just to read the results. But here are some fun facts about werewolves:

There are records of lycanthropy going as far back as 440 BC. At the time, it is written, there were whole tribes of individuals made up of werewolves. Mentions of werewolves are noted throughout antiquity and into the middle ages. In England, when the country was split into seven, from the fall of Rome to the unification in the eighth century, one of the seven sorcerers who ruled, that of Mercia, was always a werewolf. Persecution of werewolves began in earnest in the tenth century, when Christian society really began to take off in rebuilding a civilized world. It has not since then ceased.

Lycanthropy is caused by bites, on the full moon, by a fully transformed werewolf. It was once believed that scratches could cause lycanthropy as well, but this has since been disproven. However, neither bites nor scratches by a werewolf, except through an application of silver powder and dittany, can be healed magically and both will leave always scars. Lycanthropy is an incurable disease, although some palliative measures can be taken to ease the sufferers discomfort on or around the full moon. I was already fully aware of these, however, as I live by the calming draughts and muscle relaxation elixirs and pain relief potions that are listed.

Some things I mostly knew: werewolves have a heightened sense of smell and can distinctively smell humans, with a smell somewhat like food, as well as other werewolves and vampires. (It also said that werewolves and vampires don't typically eat each other, as each finds that the other tastes bad.) Werewolves can also smell certain states, like fear, or arousal (something I didn't need to read about). Werewolves also have improved vision, heightened night vision, a heightened sense of hearing, superhuman speed, superhuman strength, superhuman stamina, resistance to minor personal magic, such as the stunning spell, for example, both in human and wolf form, although more so in wolf form, resistance to poison in all forms, except for a thrice distilled combination of aconite and nightshade, in eleven parts to seven proportions, and more recently discovered in the Americas, a distillation of moonseed. It's interesting to know that I could go eat arsenic or cyanide and be unaffected as it's been experimented and proven many times to be entirely ineffective on werewolves.

Transformed werewolves remain the approximate size of their human counterparts, so that a full grown werewolf is much larger than a full grown wolf. Their coats remain a similar shade to their natural hair color and their eyes, which are almost human, retain the person's eye color as well. I wonder what I look like as a wolf. Unfortunately, this isn't something that anyone will ever find out, as that would put them in grave danger. Werewolves, even in human form, also develop an odor of wet dog, instead of standard body odor. I already realized this, which is why I'm very regular about showering.

Werewolves are classified as beings when untransformed and beasts when transformed, by the Ministry, but notably, while beings, the statutes do not say 'human.' Werewolves, even untransformed, are typically thought of as being sub-human. Notably, the killing of a werewolf, in either human or wolf form, in cases of 'necessity' is fully legal, an even outside of cases of necessity, is deemed only the 'unlawful termination of a protected magical creature.' Perpetrators will be faced with six months in Azkaban and a three hundred galleon fine. This one was rather chilling to discover, that I could be murdered, for no reason, and have whoever did it face only six months in Azkaban. Equally chilling, the torture of a werewolf, in either human or wolf form, outside of cases of necessity (although it didn't specify why it would _ever_ be necessary to torture a werewolf or anyone else for that matter), is deemed only the 'unlawful mistreatment of a protected magical creature.' Perpetrators will be faced with one month in Azkaban and a fifty galleon fine. It's also noteworthy that the Unforgiveable Curses are not illegal for usage on werewolves, as they're only illegal to use on 'humans'. I know them from my Defense against the Dark Arts text. If that isn't horrifying, nothing is. Fear of the infected is also frequently and effectively used as a mitigating circumstance in trials against people who murder or torture werewolves, often lessening the sentence into nonexistence.

On the full moon, werewolves will seek out humans by scent and are actively dangerous to them, although they are not typically dangerous to other animals at this time. It's only in human form that werewolves find all forms of meat appealing. Werewolves who are unsecured on the full moon, for any reason, and under any circumstances, will be labeled rouge werewolves and be detained for a period of three years. Repeat offenders will be put down. Werewolves who scratch or bite in wolf or human form, for any reason, and under any circumstances, will be labeled vicious werewolves and be put down. Also chilling: there is no trial required for termination in this case. Also, there is little legal recrimination against parents or families that abuse, neglect, or abandon infected children. Parents of children age seven and under who are infected may legally request that the Ministry of Magic 'humanely' have their children euthanized. One in three parents takes that option. My parents, I realize, could have easily done this. I was only four, after all.

Few people are willing to house, employ, or educate werewolves, who are typically chronically homeless and unemployed, and there exist no social services to help with werewolf support. Werewolves face severe social isolation and are generally met with fear and violence by the uninfected. Romantic relations with the uninfected are nearly unheard of and pairing between two werewolves risk mating while transformed, which is known to lead to the birth litters of wolf cubs (I will have nightmares about this, I know, I was almost sick at the thought). It's unknown if lycanthropy is heritable otherwise.

The numbers were probably the most horrifying of all. I have less than a one percent chance of living to be thirty-four, thirty years out from when I was bit. I have fifty-fifty odds of committing suicide before then, as well as about a one in six chance each of dying by accidental means while transformed, being terminated by the ministry, or simply being murdered. It's been seven years since I was bitten. The survival rate for werewolves at this point is only one in four. Three out of four people who were infected around the same time as me are already dead. Statistically speaking, a quarter of the people who were bitten last month are already dead. The suicide rate in the first month is one in five, the murder rate is one in twenty, usually by family members, not even counting the young children the ministry puts down. Fully 77% of people who are bitten don't survive the initial bite. A quarter of those are muggles, given that ministry policy is to refuse medical treatment to muggles suffering from werewolf bites. Of those who are wizards, in 68% of cases, it's because either the individual or their family refuse medical care. The murder rate jumps to ten percent by the end of the first year, including at this point mostly family and neighbors. I would know. The first time we moved houses, after I was bitten, it was because the neighbors found out I was infected and tried to drown me while father was away at work. I was only five years old. Once infected, the odds are only 46% in favor of surviving the first year.

I'm not sure I'm happy to have read all of this. I know I'm not. Maybe I shouldn't have done it, particularly right before going into my first transformation at school. Most of it is chilling, horrifying information and I don't think I'll be able to forget it. No wonder my father doesn't tell my mother much. She would be shocked and sad. He has to know himself. He works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, after all. It's no wonder he didn't tell me, too, I suppose. It's disheartening and I'm only eleven.

I can't dwell on it all now, though. It's almost sunset and I need to meet Madam Pomfrey for my potions before I go to the Shrieking Shack to transform. I'm taking these books back, first, though. I don't think I want to read any more for now.

 **AUTHOR'S END NOTE:**

 **JK Rowling says very little on the status of werewolves in the wizarding world, besides that they face a lot of prejudice and discrimination and that Umbridge made laws that make it difficult for them to get jobs. I chose to infer from the circumstances and actions of the werewolf characters, however, that wizarding England for werewolves is a complete and total dystopia. Why else would a wizard who is otherwise intelligent and well-educated and kind and brave and loyal and funny spend the vast majority of his adult life homeless, friendless and unemployed? Not only him, but every single other werewolf in the country, the vast majority of which seem to have become roving criminals. If the Ministry wasn't something to be afraid of, why would a man who hadn't obviously broken any laws recently literally jump a garden fence and run away at the entirely unrelated approach of Ministry officials? This is the direction I decided to go in, anyway. I modeled some of the 'facts' presented on real life information, for example, 'fear of the infected' as a defense against assault or murder is modeled after the concept of 'gay panic.' If you're interested, look it up on Wikipedia. If you have thoughts on the subject of my presentation of lycanthropy, feel free to discuss in review, I'd like to hear about it. I apologize if any of the math in my werewolf statistics doesn't work out properly. I tried.**

 **On a slightly more cheerful note, items seven and eight on Remus's goal list come from watching Jacques Cousteau documentaries and the old Mission Impossible television show in the now deleted original first chapter. There are mentions of wanting to know what's under the lake in the new first chapter, but item eight kind of comes out of nowhere without that information. If you're wonder why that's listed, that's why.**

 **Also, if you have anything else to say, good, bad or indifferent (except, of course, on the issue of editing errors: see my first end note for that), I'd be happy for reviews.**

 **Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.**


	4. September 6, 1971 to September 10, 1971

**AUTHOR'S OPENING NOTE:**

 **Once again, and as always, in the spirit of Albus Dumbledore, everything I want to say is in the chapter's end note.**

September 6, 1971

Well, it's my first day post-full moon. Where do I start? Well, my mum would say that the beginning is a very good place to start (as would her favorite movie, the Sound of Music), so I guess I'll keep this journal chronological for now.

I actually had a very good moon last night, one of the best I can remember. I think it was the new, larger location. Madam Pomfrey escorted me to the Whomping Willow, stopped its punching with a spell to tap the nob at the base, which opened up the tunnel underneath, leading, after a good bit of walking, to a trap door in the sitting room floor of the Shrieking Shack. She made sure I was comfortable, reminded me to stow my clothes in a cabinet so that they wouldn't be ruined by either me transforming in them or the werewolf chewing them to pieces and to not fiddle with the doors or windows or the trap door, just to be safe. She then left me to do my business. I left my clothing in an overhead cabinet in the kitchen, where the wolf was least likely to get them and took a seat on the sofa in the sitting room and waited. I didn't have to wait long. The transformation hurt as much as ever, of course, but after that, things weren't so bad. At home, the wolf spends the entire night throwing itself at the cellar door and walls, trying to escape, trying to get to the tantalizing smell of humans nearby. I'm used to waking up with bruises and broken bones and dislocated joints and scrapes and scratches. This time, I could still smell the after scent of human, I remember, but the wolf knew no one was close and instead chose to spend the night exploring every nook and cranny of its new surrounding to see if it could find anything interesting. I'm not sure if it did or not, my memories of the wolf are always vague, but at least it didn't spend all night throwing itself at the walls. I changed back relatively unscathed. I was exhausted and starving and my bones and muscles hurt, like they always do, and I was dreadfully thirsty (I never drink anything in the hours before the full moon, because the wolf doesn't know better than to wallow in its own wee), but other than that, I was alright.

Madam Pomfrey, when she showed up, had to help me into my clothes, because my bones hurt too badly to raise my arms over my head to get them down from the cabinet that I put them in, never mind put them on. But overall, it was a good night, for being what it was. Madam Pomfrey asked me how I felt and I told her. She looked me over, ask me how I felt and I told her, so she told me if I was feeling up to it, we could stop off at the kitchens to get me something to eat before going up to the hospital wing, since there was still an hour and a half before breakfast would be served. I agreed, so she led me through the tunnel, helping me along the way, then into the castle, down a set of stairs leading into a dungeon, but not the same stairs I took for Potions, opposite of those. She stopped at a picture of a still life of fruit, tickled the pear and the portrait opened up. Inside, were dozens of house elves. I'd never seen any before. They were perhaps three feet tall, wearing maroon tea towels like togas, embossed with the Hogwarts crest. They were very pleasant and helpful, asking what I wanted and all that. Given that it was just after the full moon, what I wanted was an extra-large steak, very rare, and an entire pitcher of ice water, both of which they provided within minutes. I wolfed it down, so to speak, then we proceeded up to the hospital wing, before any of the students in the school came about. I'll keep the location of the kitchens in mind for later, though. In the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey gave me the usual potions and sent me to bed in a far corner, which she obscured with curtains so no one would no one would know I was there.

I woke up just after lunch time with my father's owl waiting for me by my bed. It had a package, with a note from my mum and dad, which responded to my first letter, but also highlighted asking how my first 'weekend' went. I knew they meant full moon, of course. It also included two pieces of mum's chocolate cake. Madam Pomfrey ordered lunch for me, brought up by the elves, a couple of very good sandwiches, one turkey, one beef. I ate the first piece of chocolate cake for dessert, borrowed a quill and some parchment from Madam Pomfrey to pen a reply to the note, and then told Madam Pomfrey I felt well enough to leave. I still felt achy and tired, but I did my best to hide it as she looked me over, and she declared that I could go, as long as I took things easily. With that out of the way, I headed first to the dungeons, to deliver the second piece of cake to Professor Slughorn, as he'd asked (he was delighted to receive it, as I'm sure, from his size, he feels about most sweet things), then up to the owlery to answer my parent's letter, telling them everything had gone fine. I then headed to the dormitories to gather my things for potions. James, Peter and Sirius were all there, lounging on their beds when I came in. I made first for my bedside table and the chocolate bar I had stowed there for the post-full moon. Chocolate always makes me feel better after the full moon. To my utter disappointment, however, I found it was gone. I looked around, taking full note of the other boys this time, to realize that they were in the process of eating.

"That's mine," I said. James just smirked and shrugged, though. Peter looked slightly guilty, but quickly shoved the rest that was in his hand into his mouth. Sirius looked guilty as well, but given that he was licking the remainder off of his fingers I looked at him, there was nothing he could do about it.

"Where were you this morning?" James said.

"I went home to see my mum," I said. I went to my trunk to gather my things for Potions. It was obvious when I opened it that someone had gone through its contents haphazardly. I quickly located my diary, though, and it looked unread and unscathed. It only opened at my touch, anway.

"Aww," James said while I did this, "Did someone miss his mummy?"

"My mum's sick," I said, grabbing my school bag, which had been dumped out into the trunk. I found parchment and quills and ink, though, along with my potions text and herb reference, which I put in my bag. Everything else I packed into my cauldron.

"How sick can she be that you had to come home and see her not even a week into school?" James asked.

I looked up and gave him a sharp look. "She's dying," I told him shortly. And, like all good lies, it had the virtue of being true.

He had the good grace to at least look embarrassed then. He didn't say anything else as I left the dormitory with my things to go and find Lily. She wasn't in the common room, so I went to the library, thinking it was likely she was there. She was, sitting at a table with Severus, but she waved me over and I joined them.

"Remus!" she said. "Where were you this morning?"

"Sorry," I said. "I had to go home for a bit. Did I miss anything?"

"We had notes in Transfiguration, but you can copy mine," she said. "We practiced levitation more in Charms and there was a lecture in History of Magic, too, although my notes aren't very good, you can copy them, too, if you like. We also turned our essays in. Why did you have to go home?"

"My mum's sick," I said.

"Oh," Lily said. "How sick is she that you had to go home?"

"She's dying," I said.

Her face was immediately stricken. Severus sat quietly. I'd already told him this, sort of. "Oh, Remus," she said. "I'm so sorry! What's wrong with her?"

Lily really does ask too many questions. "Systemic lupus erythematosus," I told her. It was ironic, of course, I thought, that she was sick with a disease that was, in early times, believed to have been caused by wolf bites. "She could live another decade, the doctors say, or should could have a bad flare up and be dead next week. Needless to say, I'll be going home when she flares up."

"Oh Remus," she repeated. "I'm so sorry."

"She was diagnosed when I was eight," I said. "So I've gotten used to the idea. I mean, it still feels crappy, but I've gotten used to it."

"I'm sorry," she repeated one more time. There wasn't really anything else you can say to something like that, though.

"Can I get your notes after dinner?" I asked her. "There's a book I want to grab before potions."

"Of course," she said, standing up as I stood up. She stepped forward and hugged me. It felt nice.

"Thanks," I said. She gave me a small smile then sat back down. I went to the stacks to find a book, leaving my things with Lily and Severus, then thought better of it and went to ask the librarian. "Excuse me," I said. "Do you have any books with a locking spell in them?"

"Why would you need something like that?" she asked me.

"I've been having a problem with people getting in my trunk," I said.

She thought for a moment, deciding whether or not that was a good excuse, and then told me, "Right this way." She led me to a particular shelf, based around magical security, which I noted for later, and then pulled out a particular volume, Beginning Principles and Spells in Magical Security for the Novice Wizard. "You should be able to perform the spells in this one," she said.

"Thanks so much," I told her. We went back to the desk and she checked it out for me. I tucked it into my school bag, rejoining Lily and Severus, as they packed up their things to head down to Potions.

Lily and Severus of course sat together in Potions, but Sirius waved me over and I sat next to him again, while James sat next to Peter. I've noticed that James prefers to sit between Sirius and Peter, but if he has to work with one of them, he picks Peter, because Peter would be hopeless without him. Anyway, class started in, with Professor Slughorn immediately saying, "Mr. Lupin, thank your mother for the cake for me, it was delicious. And take ten points for Gryffindor," which felt nice up until several people started snickering and James threw a crumpled piece of parchment at the back of my head while Professor Slughorn began his lecture. "BROWN NOSER!" it said, in huge letters. I really can't stand James Potter. Sirius frowned at it.

"What did I do?" I whispered at Sirius, a bit confused. "He asked me for the cake and gave Gryffindor ten points for it."

"You realize it looks like you're trying to suck up to the teacher, doesn't it?" Sirius said.

"No, I didn't," I said, although I could see it once he said it.

"Well, stop it," he hissed. I made a note of that and then took to writing notes about the importance of the proportion of ingredients in potion making and in which cases the amount of ingredients can be adjusted and which it can't because some potions merely require a specific proportion of ingredients to work while some require a very exact number. I managed to follow it, at least and got through the rest of the class period okay, although Professor Slughorn gave us a list of basic potions and told us to look up whether or not the ingredient amounts could be adjusted from the base recipes in the text book for homework.

After Potions, I dropped my things in the dormitory, copied out Lily's History of Magic notes, which were shorter than her Transfiguration notes and rather less thorough than I would have done, but I've read the text, so I got the idea. We went to dinner after that.

Sirius, sitting with James and Peter across the table from Lily and I, got an owl at dinner with a package attached. He unwrapped it, to find three bars of Honeyduke's Best Chocolate. He promptly passed them across the table to me. "I ordered them by mail from Hogsmeade before Potions," he said. It wasn't quite an apology, but the intent was there.

"Thanks," I said.

"Seriously?" James hissed at Sirius.

"Yes," Sirius said, giving James a rather stern look. "We're both far too rich to be stealing candy from the poor."

James groaned and then sighed. "I guess you're right," he said.

Lily looked at me, raising her eyebrows. I just shook my head. After dinner, we got our things from the dormitory and headed to the library, to meet Severus. I was happy to go along, as I knew I could use his assistance with the Potions homework. We did that first, as I shared one of the chocolate bars with the two of them (I left the other two in my nightstand, where hopefully they won't be bothered again) and then I copied Lily's notes for Transfiguration. After I was done with that, I told them, "I'm going to go back to the dorms and catch up on the Charms practice. I don't think we're allowed to practice magic in the library." Lily told me she'd see me later, while Severus looked happy to see me go, and then I stopped off at the History of Magic classroom to drop off my essay and headed back to Gryffindor Tower. My main intention wasn't the levitation charm, however.

James, Peter, and Sirius were in the common room playing gob stones. James was laughing at Peter, who'd just been sprayed in the face with some foul smelling fluid. That meant the dormitory was clear, though, so I went, pulling out the book I'd gotten from the library, and began to study it. The locking spell I needed didn't seem that difficult. It took me several tries, but I finally got it to work on my trunk. Of course, then I realized that I'd have to learn the unlocking spell to get my trunk open again, so I worked on that. I got it to the point where I could lock, unlock, lock, unlock, with minimal fuss or noise, so that I might obscure the mechanism from the other boys. Altogether, it took about an hour, but since the others hadn't come back yet, I kept going, looking for other simple spells to learn. A few of the spells in the book seemed a bit beyond my current capabilities, but Open and Close were both inside, so I decided to try them. They didn't strike me as security spells (they're in the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2, after all) but the book explained that they're useful "when one cannot leave cover to manage the control of entrances or exits or when one fears that the same might be booby-trapped." Given that booby-trapping doors is beginning to seem very much like something James might do, I decided it was worthwhile. It was simple enough. Finally, when I was done with that, I took a shower and then practiced the levitation charm until the other boys came up to bed. I managed to get to the point where I could get not just one but a stack of books up to the ceiling and also levitate my full trunk about up to shoulder height. It took me about an hour, but there it goes.

It's been an exhausting day, with hours of taking notes and practicing magic after the full moon. Now I'm going to bed.

September 7, 1971

I had a nightmare last night, as I knew I would eventually. I was a grown man (looking rather like my father) and I had a wife (who looked rather like my mother) and she was pregnant. I put my hand on her belly, like I've seen men do on the tele, to feel the baby kick. It was just a light touch at first, like what a normal baby kick should be and I laughed, but then there were two kicks at once, then four, and I pulled out up her shirt to see a dozen little feet visibly kicking at her stomach, harder and harder. Then they began to claw, I could see them ripping at her skin from the inside, and she was screaming, and then they finally burst through, cutting through her stomach, as she collapsed on the floor, three little wolf cubs. I tried to back away, but they launched themselves at me, visibly growing into full grown wolves before me… at that point, Sirius woke me up. Apparently, I was disturbed enough by my dream that I disturbed him, although luckily neither of the other two boys woke up. He shook me awake by the shoulder and asked me if I was okay. I nodded, told him it was just a bad dream, he nodded, and went back to sleep. I was covered in sweat. It was four in the morning. I couldn't get back to sleep. I tried reading one of my books by wand light, but I couldn't concentrate, so I just stared at my bed canopy until it was late enough that I could get dressed and go to breakfast. I took another shower, first, to get ready of the wet dog smell of my sweat.

Sirius slept through breakfast, of course, as we've got the first two periods free until Charms. I've got a much easier way of bringing him breakfast, now, though since I know where the kitchens are. I went down just after ten and asked for a tray. The house elves were happy to oblige, providing a much better breakfast than I could have brought away from the great hall on a single plate. Going down there, to the kitchens, I decided to add exploring the castle to my first year to-do list. It now looks something like this:

Remus John Lupin's First Year Goals List

1: Keep everyone from discovering you're a werewolf.

2: Learn all you can about werewolves.

3: Get at least straight E's in all of your classes.

4: Try not to alienate Lily.

5: Try not to alienate Sirius.

6: Try not to be murdered by or to murder James Potter.

7: Discover what is under the lake.

8: Learn about wizarding spy craft.

9: Explore Hogwarts Castle.

I'm not sure whether I should cross out number two at this point or not. I'm not sure I want to learn all I can about werewolves anymore. It's worse than I expected it to be and I always knew that it would be bad. But I still have unanswered questions and I think perhaps I should continue, eventually, no matter how rough it gets. I am one, after all. Anyway, Sirius was pleased with the improved breakfast.

Classes so far today have been Charms, Defense against the Dark Arts and Herbology. I'm writing this now as I wait on Astronomy. We continued to practice Levitation in Charms. Professor Flitwick was excited about my improvement. Of course, James and Sirius thought it was funny to spend the whole period trying to levitate Professor Flitwick himself, who, admittedly, is quite small (I'm not sure if he's part goblin or something, or just a midget, honestly, but he's shorter than I am- although I am rather tall for my age). They weren't very good at it, only getting him to hover an inch or two above the ground once or twice and once Professor Flitwick figured out they were doing it, he docked them ten points from Gryffindor. They thought it was hilarious, though. I mean, in terms of things they've done that they've found amusing, this one was probably the closest from actually being amusing, but nonetheless, ten points. In Defense against the Dark Arts, we continued notes on the History of the Dark Arts. Then in Herbology, we did notes on a plant we're going to work on tomorrow. We were given homework in Herbology, to look up and diagram the plant in question, a Wobbly Mulgus (from the latin, to milk, given that it has a milky sap inside, rather like a dandelion's but with magical properties, and the fact that it sort of… wobbles, I guess). Lily and I did that in the library in the free period between Herbology and dinner, while Severus was looking up hexes (which doesn't bode well for the future, I think).

Lily and I went to dinner together after that. We were seated across from James, Peter and Sirius when Sirius got an owl. This was the most interesting portion of the day. Post doesn't generally come at dinner, it mostly comes at breakfast, sometimes lunch, rarely dinner, so a lot of people watched the giant owl swoop in and down to the Gryffindor table. It was carrying a bright red envelop. Sirius groaned seeing it. I didn't know what it was, but James and several older students at our table started laughing when they saw it. Peter looked terrified. "You got a howler!" James snickered.

The head boy, Paul Howard, was sitting several seats down from us. He sighed. "You best open it," he said. "It only gets worse if you leave it waiting."

Sirius flinched, like it was going to bite him, but pulled the envelope off of the owl (who flew away promptly, with a disapproving hoot) and pulled off the waxed ribbon holding it shut. Immediately, the envelope took flight, about face level with Sirius and starting screaming. "MY SON, MY FIRST BORN SON, A DISGRACE TO THE MOST NOBLE AND ANCIENT HOUSE OF BLACK! HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY DARE TO SHAME YOUR FAMILY IN SUCH A PUBLIC WAY, YOU UNGRATEFUL, HEATHEN CHILD! THAT EVAN ROSIER HAD TO TELL CAMDEN ROSIER WHO TOLD DRUELLA ROSIER WHO TOLD YOUR UNCLE CYGNUS WHO TOLD YOUR FATHER WHO TOLD ME FOR ME TO FIND OUT, I WILL NEVER LIVE DOWN THE EMBARASSMENT." That was quite a list, I thought privately. "YOU WRETCHED BOY. I THOUGHT IT WAS A MISTAKE THAT I WAS RECEIVING DETENTION NOTICES FROM THE HEAD OF GRYFFINDOR HOUSE, DISGRACEFUL ENOUGH ALREADY AS THOSE WERE, BUT NO! YOU HAVE ABANDONED THE TRADITIONS OF YOUR FOREBARERS! THE SHAME! YOU ARE THE SHAME OF MY FLESH, THE SHAME OF MY WOMB, SIRIUS BLACK! I HOPE YOU ARE PROUD OF YOUR SELF, YOU FILTHY, VILE WRETCH, HOW YOU HAVE MADE YOUR MOTHER WEEP!" It then burst into flames.

There was a stunned silence and then the Great Hall erupted with laughter, particularly at the Slytherin table. Sirius had turned a very distinctive shade of pink. "Well, I was wondering why that took so long," he said smoothly, though. "I was certain Cissy or Maddie would have wrote her directly, but come to think of it, neither of them particularly get along with their parents… or mine for that matter… and if it had to go through that many people…" He shrugged, still pink, and turned to concentrate (rather much more than necessary) on his meal.

James was giggling. "She said womb," he said. Sirius lashed out and punched him in the shoulder, still concentrating on his steak and kidney pie. "Ow," James answered. I didn't know what to make of it all, really. If my mother said such awful things about me, I would have wept at the table. Luckily, I suppose, I have a much better mother than that.

Lily said she was going to meet with some of the girls after dinner, so now I'm writing this. I still have plenty of time until we have Astronomy with Ravenclaw, so I guess, since I've noticed I haven't written much on my classmates, I should perhaps do that now. Starting with the boys I live with, from what I've heard from and about them and what I've observed, James, Sirius, and Peter are all purebloods, although James and Sirius both have long standing pedigrees, while Peter's only goes back to his great-grandparents. James and Sirius are both exceptionally wealthy, with James' grandfather having invented a type of magical hair serum (which is funny, actually, as James' hair is always a mess), from which he amassed a fortune, while the Black family wealth goes back to banking interests in the late middle ages. Peter's family seems to be comfortably in the lower end of the middle class. James is an only child. His dad and mum are very old. His dad was seventy-four and his mum sixty-three when he was born. They thought they couldn't have children, so when they had him, they viewed him as some sort of miracle and have since then treated him as such, which is likely why he such a dreadful spoiled brat. (I'd rather not think about people that old having… relations.) His parents don't work and so were always home to shower him with attention as well as any material object he could possibly desire. Sirius' has a brother who is one year younger, called Regulus (apparently, astronomy themed naming is a recent Black tradition). His parents also don't work, although his father is involved with several political lobbies that advocate 'pureblood interests.' His entire family has been in Slytherin for centuries, which is apparently why his mum was so upset that he wasn't. He has two cousins in Slytherin now, Andromeda Black, a sixth year, called Maddie, and Narcissa Black, a fourth year, called Cissy (who somehow escaped from the astronomical themed names to end up named after a flower), who are his father's brother's two younger children. His oldest cousin, Bellatrix Black, was a seventh year last year and people still whisper, particularly in Gryffindor common room when Sirius is around about what a nightmare she was. Apparently Evan Rosier, also in Slytherin, is some sort of cousin by marriage (related to Maddie and Cissy's mother). Peter lives with his mom, who works her own small business breeding fancy plants and charming lawn gnomes. He has a sister, three years younger, but everyone suspect she's a squib, which James makes fun of him for sometimes. His father hasn't been seen since he was five, when he went out to get some milk, and never returned. It's rumored that he immigrated to the Americas. James makes fun of him for that sometimes, too. James isn't a very good friend. The two of them grew up together, though, playing together since they were toddlers, as their families live close to each other and Peter seems to be under the impression that James is the most brilliant thing that exists. James also seems to be under that impression. James and Peter are both short for their age, although James is slender and Peter is quite plump, with a round, chubby face. Sirius is around average height. I'm the tall one in our dorm. James and Sirius both have dark brown hair, which imprecise people might call black, with James wearing his short and always messy, while Sirius is rather long, falling below his chin. Peter's hair is a short, dark, dirty blond (while mine is a red-tinted light brown). Sirius has greyish blue eyes, while James' are a sort of hazel brown and Peter's are also greyish blue, but a sort of watery, washed out shade of the color, unlike Sirius' which are rather nice. His eyes are squinty to boot. James also wears thick framed square brown eye glasses. (My eyes are, of course, medium blue.) Sirius is handsome, or at least, is going to grow up to be handsome. His cousins, what I've seen of them, are both beautiful and he has their same fine features. James, I suppose, is better than average looking. Peter, on the other hand, is unfortunate looking, with crooked teeth and an overbite and large ears that stick out, making him look somewhat like a rodent. James also makes fun of him for these things. James and Sirius are both very clever, I'll give them that. Peter is not, although James helps him a lot, so he's scraping by in class. The fact that we've not been here for a week and he's only scraping by, however, doesn't bode well, either. James is obsessed with Quidditch. He also thinks it's terribly funny to pick on other people. I think he's a git.

I'm out of time now, so I guess I'll write on everyone else some other day. Off to Astronomy.

September 8, 1971

Well, we're only a week into the school year and it's already very likely that I'm going to fail at item number six on my year's goals list, because there is a strong possibility of James Potter murdering me in my sleep tonight.

The day started out well enough, with notes in both Transfiguration and History of Magic, during the first two periods of the day, and then a long break until lunch that I spent with Lily walking around the grounds and sitting out by the lake, enjoying the fine fall weather. We had Herbology after lunch, where we worked pruning the Wobbly Mulgus after Professor Sprouts demonstration, but after that, we had Potions, which I'm fairly certain is my worst subject anyway and never seems to go very well. Things somehow managed to get arranged so that James and Peter were sitting behind Lily and Severus, with me and Sirius on the reverse side of the room as usual. I knew from the start, just from the seating arrangements, that things were likely to go especially poorly today. We were still doing notes, so luckily there wasn't anything boiling or burning around for James to assault Severus with, but he spent the entire period hissing insults at him, mostly to do with the state of his personal hygiene, and throwing things, like crumpled parchment and the odd bits of potions ingredients that litter the classroom, at his back and the back of his head. Severus did a very good job of not retaliating, however. He put up with it the entire period and as soon as the bell rang, he stormed out. The fight started with Lily.

"You're such a bully, James Potter!" Lily yelled at him, as soon as we were out in the corridor. "Why can't you leave Severus alone?"

James pretended to think hard about this and said, "I don't know. Principle, perhaps? He is a Slytherin. Or maybe it's the fact that he seems to have never encountered a bath in his life. Must be one of the two."

"Come on," I said to Lily, gently taking her arm to guide her away. "It's not worth it."

"You're right," she said, giving James a disgusted look. "Let's go, Remus." She went with me and the two of us headed towards the exit of the dungeons.

James wasn't ready to let it go, though. He followed behind us, Sirius and Peter tailing him. "Go ahead, run off," James said behind us. "You should have been in Hufflepuff; their color is yellow." I should have been in Hufflepuff, I agreed privately, but more because I prefer loyalty and tolerance to the strange way in which James seems to have equated courage with dominance over the weak. But we ignored him and kept walking. This didn't halt him in anyway, though, it just seemed to encourage him. "So, Remus," he said. "Are you going to put up with Lily having two boyfriends? You're no great shakes, but anything must be better than Severus. If you have to share her, the least she could do for you is pick someone better than that grease-ball."

"She's not my girlfriend," I said back to him.

"No?" he said. "Do you not like girls? Maybe I got things wrong and it's you and Severus that are the item and Lily's just the tang-along."

"I'm eleven," I answered him. "I'm not dating anyone."

"Ignore him," Lily told me.

"That doesn't seem very manly of you," James said, ignoring her and responding to my comment.

"Because you're so manly, James Potter," Lily said, immediately ignoring her own advice. "Picking on people whose backs are turned. I don't see you with a girlfriend, either. Not that you're old enough for one, either, or likely to be ready for one any time soon. You're so short you'll have to stand on a chair to reach puberty." It was a good insult and I couldn't help myself, I cracked up. I think Sirius did, too, but he turned it into a rather undignified snort. James gave a squeak of indignation, though.

"Take that back," James said.

"No," Lily said. We were still walking, now up the main stair, heading for the Gryffindor Tower.

"Take it back!" James repeated.

"You'll need a ladder to reach manhood," she added instead. I couldn't help it, I was doubled over laughing, still climbing up the stairs.

"I won't have you two mocking me!" James said, indignant.

I couldn't help myself. I said, "Don't worry: I won't make fun of your height, James. I would never stoop that low." Then I cracked up again, because of course I laugh at my own jokes.

Things turned unfortunate as we approached the Fat Lady, though, at the top of the landing. "I'll make you regret that," he said. "You're in my house; you're supposed to be on my side." It was a simplistic world view on loyalty, of course, but then, as he pointed out, he's not a Hufflepuff. He wouldn't make it there.

"Well," Lily answered, "Maybe if you gave keeping your big fat mouth shut a try we would be."

"Maybe you'd like to give my new hex a try," he rebutted.

I turned and he was pulling his wand. That was enough for me. I pulled my own wand, much more quickly. He started shouting something that started with "pru" while I called out, "Expelliarmus!" His wand flew from his hand and I caught it neatly.

"You give that back!" he said, after a brief moment of surprise. Behind him, Peter had also pulled his wand, but I wasn't worried, he still can't pull off a levitation charm, let alone something that could hurt me. Sirius's hand was lingering around his pocket, uncertain whether he should draw or not.

"Why would he give it back?" Lily asked. "So you can hex him?"

"You give it back!" he yelled. He reminded me of nothing more than a small child throwing a tantrum. His face was turning read with anger. I felt angry, too, though, and it told me not to give in, not to roll over to this spoiled brat.

"Go and get it," I told him. Then I chucked it off the fifth floor landing.

He gave what would best be labeled a battle cry at that point, not quite a shriek, not quite a roar, and lunged at me, I guess looking to fight me fisticuffs, muggle style. But I'm a good six inches taller than he is, with werewolf strength. I shot out one arm and held him off, outside of punching range from me. "You're not going to beat me up, Potter," I told him. "I'm nice, I'm not weak. You should try to learn the difference." Then I tossed him back from me (as gently as I could, as I didn't want him to topple down the stairs). Sirius caught him before he could tumble. He glared at me for a moment, his glasses askew, his face red, both obviously angry but also vaguely embarrassed, too, considering what to do. It was clearly a lost cause, though, even to him. He pulled himself up and turned heel around, back down the stairs. "So help me, Lupin," he called up at me as he went down, "If you've broken my wand, they'll never find your body."

"Come on," Lily said. "Let's go in."

I felt triumphant, walking into the Gryffindor common room, but it didn't last long. Panic quickly replaced it. My father had told me to avoid bullies and here I was picking fights with them. I have to live with James Potter for seven years, I couldn't have picked a better way to make myself miserable than making an enemy of him. I told Lily to go ahead and go along with the girls to dinner and then went to our dorms, made sure everything I own was stowed safely and locked in my trunk, before heading down to the kitchens to snag a private dinner, where James Potter couldn't stab me to death from across the Gryffindor house table. Then I headed back upstairs, showered, changed, and switched into my pajamas before re-securing my trunk. I need to lock this up, too. I intend to pretend to be asleep when the other boys get back. Hopefully they have the good graces not to attack a sleeping person, but really, I wouldn't put it past James, come to think of it. I'll be sleeping with my wand, in any case, although I don't know what I'll do with it. I could try locking them out of the dorms, but they'd just get one of the prefects or Professor McGonagall to sort it and then I'd have a lot of explaining to do. Disarming is the only really good spell I know. No one will spot my emergency flare inside of our dormitory. I'll work on that, getting something to better protect myself, if I live through the night.

September 9, 1971

Well, I made it through the night alive, so there is that. I've made it through the entire day without James killing me, actually, so there is that. It was a tense, quiet day, with James staring daggers at me every time I looked at him (which I tried not to do, mostly), but he didn't attack. Maybe he's waiting until he can learn how to do something horrible? Or maybe I seemed so much more impressive than I actually am last night that he's not going to attack me until he realizes that I'm not really that great? At any rate, at least it seems like I didn't break his wand, because he was still carrying it around like it was useful, anyway.

We had Transfiguration, History of Magic, Defense against the Dark Arts and Herbology today, so far and we're still waiting on Astronomy. We did notes in Transfiguration, History of Magic and History of Magic and did more care on our plants in Herbology, this time learning how to replant the Wobbly Mulgus. Transfiguration and History of Magic both gave homework, a summation for Transfiguration on the basic principles of a simple substantive transfiguration and an essay on the establishment of the different individual departments of the Ministry of Magic. I worked with Lily in the library on the Transfiguration write up in the free periods between Defense against the Dark Arts (where we're still covering the history of the dark arts) and Herbology and we did the History of Magic essay after dinner. James managed to behave himself the entire day. He didn't say a word to me or Lily, or even Severus that I know of. Neither did Sirius or Peter for that matter. Who knows, though, maybe he's waiting to throw me off of the North Tower in Astronomy.

Since we have a little while until my impending demise on (or rather off of) the North Tower and I've already written about the Gryffindor boys, I'll write about the girls now instead. I'll try to make it more coherent than my thoughts about the boys. I've reread them and they're a mess. Anyway, the girls are Lily Evans, of course, Mary McDonald, Marlene McKinnon, Joan Hutchins, Noreen Fitzherbert and Eleanor Stark.

Lily, who I've written plenty about, of course, is the closest thing I have to a friend here, I suppose. She's muggle born, but she knew she was a witch before her Hogwarts letter ever came, because she lives near Severus Snape, who saw her performing wild magic when they were children at the park and told her. They're good friends. Lily has a sister, Petunia, who is two years older and jealous about Lily coming to school to learn magic. She's expressed that jealousy as anger, though. Her dad is an aeronautical engineer; before he got into that business, he was a pilot for the RAF. According to Lily, he enlisted at 18 in WWII and flew bombing missions over Germany. Her mother is a homemaker. She's very clever. Her best subject, I think, is charms. She's fiery, too, she doesn't care what people think about her, she does what she wants. She has wavy, coppery red hair and blue eyes and is about average height for a girl, I suppose. She's pretty. Besides me and Severus, she spends her time with Marlene and Mary, but she's also managed to build contacts with some of the older girls, like Marla Allard. I don't know how she does it. She's good with people.

Marlene McKinnon is a pureblood. She's got brown hair and brown eyes. Her hair is very long and very straight. Her ears are pierced and she always wears expensive studs in her ears, silver or pearls or small diamonds. Her family has some money, I think. Not like James or Sirius, who have the sort of wealth that you can live off of without working, but her father has a business making and selling dragon-byproduct goods, which are expensive; for example, even second hand (or more likely third hand, from the state of them), my dragon hide protective gloves for use in potions and herbology costed over a galleon. She has an older brother, Terrance McKinnon, who is a sixth year in Ravenclaw. She's nice enough looking and I like her well enough, I guess. She's been polite to me, anyway. She's fairly smart, too. Marlene, Lily, James, Sirius and I were the only ones to get the levitation charm down on the first day.

Mary McDonald is muggle born. Her family is Irish. She has a round but pleasant face, blonde hair and brown eyes. Her family is working class. Her father is an auto mechanic, her mother works at a dry cleaners. She has a younger brother and a younger sister who may or may not be magic; it remains to be seen. She's very friendly, if not incredibly bright (not that she's dumb, either, but Marlene and Lily are much smarter). She and Marlene met and became fast friends on the train. I like her, too.

Joan Hutchins in a half-blood. She has very curly brown hair, brown eyes and freckles. Her father works the presses at the Daily Prophet, while her mother is a muggle homemaker. She's an only child. She, like, Mary, is of rather average intelligence and talent. She's never been rude to me, but she hasn't been particularly friendly, either, and I've noticed that she's a bit of a gossip. She spends a lot of time around one of the second years, Bertha Jorkins, who is known in the common room for the fact that you can't tell her anything, although she'll probably find out anyway, as she's both very nosy and a major pry.

Noreen Fitzherbert is actually the daughter of a muggle woman and a squib man. I guess magic skipped a generation in her family, because her father's parents a wizard and a witch (although her grandfather is dead, she just has a matronly grandmother that keeps the entire family in her clutches, as she tells it). She has a younger brother, but the family is fairly certain that he doesn't have magic as well. Her father works in landscaping. Noreen has reddish-brown hair, brown eyes, and freckles. She's a bit dim, but nice. She tags along with Joan a lot, because Marlene and Mary have each other (and sometimes Lily), Eleanor isn't friends with anyone (although she often ends up stuck working with Noreen, as they're the two that the other girls least want to work with) and Joan likes the audience for her gossiping.

That leaves Eleanor Stark. She's a pureblood, of course, the daughter and only child of Meriton Stark, the murdered Auror, and a pureblood witch, whom we don't know anything else about, because she never talks. I'm fairly certain that I've never heard her speak. I certainly wouldn't recognize the sound of her voice if I heard it. She also does almost no work in class (only ever rousing herself to save the Wobbly Mulgus in Herbology that Noreen almost murdered, which is funny, as Noreen's dad is a landscaper). She's pretty, though, with wavy dark blonde hair and blue eyes and a fine face. I wonder what she'd be like, if she was like anything at all. The other girls have written off her behavior as grief, but after they approached her the first few times and she didn't respond, they stopped trying to reach other to her.

That's it for the girls, really. I should really get my things ready for Astronomy. Hopefully James really doesn't push me off the tower. I don't know a spell for flying.

September 10, 1971

Well, James didn't throw me off the Astronomy Tower last night and my relationship with the other Gryffindor boys seems to have improved somewhat since yesterday, when none of them were talking to me. I brought Sirius breakfast in bed from the kitchens, as usual, because he slept in, as usual for days we don't have Transfiguration. We went to Charms, where we were practicing Levitation for the last day (even though Peter and Noreen are both still quite shaky on it), and then Defense against the Dark Arts, where we're still taking notes on the history of the dark arts (and, considering the depth that Professor Gamp is going into, we might still be doing when Christmas break comes around, as we've just now broken into the Roman Empire, although I don't mind, it's one of my favorite classes) and we made it through both of those just fine.

There's a break between Defense against the Dark Arts and lunch, though. Lily was doing something with the girls, so I was sitting in the common room alone, reviewing my Potions notes from last class period when Sirius and Peter came up and asked me to help them with their History of Magic essays. I was wary that it might be a trap, but I agreed, although we only had time to do the outline before Potions. James even managed not to make a nuisance out of himself in potions, sitting away from Lily and Severus for once.

I had dinner with Lily after that and then returned to the common room to help Sirius and Peter finish their essays. James was nowhere to be seen. We went to put our school things back in the dormitory after we were done with the essays, though, (although it was a long slog, with me having to explain everything to Peter at least twice) and I discovered that James was sitting in the dormitory on his bed, reading a joke book.

"Get those essays done?" James asked, seemingly directing the question to me as we came in.

"Yes," I said. Then I decided to extend an olive branch. "You know, you could have done yours with us if you liked," I told him.

James shrugged. "I'll just copy off Sirius," he said. "Old Binns is dead to the world. He didn't notice it last week. He won't notice now." He got off his bunk as we passed, tucked his book into his trunk and pulled out his shower things. "You know," he added, as he headed towards the bathroom. "Sirius doesn't actually like you. He just wants a servant. You bring him breakfast. You help him with his History of Magic essays. You even lay out his clothes and pack his school bag for him half the time. You're practically a house elf." He went into the bathroom before I could respond.

I looked to Sirius. He had turned rather pink around the ears. "I don't think that," he said. "You don't think that, do you?"

"I don't mind, really," I answered.

"That's what a house elf would say!" James called out from behind the bathroom door. But really, if criticizing me for being helpful is the worst James can come up with at this point, I'm not doing that bad.

 **AUTHOR'S END NOTE:**

 **In one of the few instances where I preferred the movies to the books, I chose to base Remus and Sirius's physical appearances off of those of David Thewlis and Gary Oldman, rather than the descriptions provided in the text. I also chose to make Lily's eyes blue rather than green, because I'm perfectly happy with Daniel Radcliffe as a model for Harry Potter, although not with the movie portrayal of any of the Marauders Era characters as children, excepting Snape. It's like the casting people didn't even try with them as kids. A brown-eyed child Lily, when the defining characteristic of Lily for most of the series was that she and Harry shared the same eyes? No. You can't tell me they couldn't find a red haired blue eyed actress of the appropriate age in the entirety of the UK. They just didn't try.**

 **I apologize if my treatment of lupus is in anyway in accurate. I recognize that currently most (90% or so) people can live out a normal lifespan with lupus, if they're provided with proper treatment, but keep in mind this is 1971, and treatment is less advanced, or account Mary Lupin (I'm sorry, but Hope Howle was an awful name, so I kept the one I originally gave her) as one of the unlucky 10%. Anyway, I did my best.**

 **Also, if you have anything else to say, good, bad or indifferent (except, of course, on the issue of editing errors: see my first end note for that), I'd be happy for reviews.**

 **Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.**


	5. September 11, 1971 to September 12, 1971

**AUTHOR'S OPENING NOTE:**

 **Once again, and as always, in the spirit of Albus Dumbledore, everything I want to say is in the chapter's end note.**

September 11, 1971

It's Saturday morning. Given that all of my homework and reading for next week is done, and Lily has plans with Severus (she left me after an early breakfast), that gives me a whole weekend to do what I like with. I've decided to deal with number nine on my goals list, "Explore Hogwarts Castle." Given that it's a very large castle, my chances of exploring the whole thing today are minimal; I imagine I'll have to do it in stages. So, for the day, I have set the sub-goal for myself of locating all of the house common rooms. I have a general idea of their locations: the Slytherins don't exit the dungeons between Potions and dinner, unless they're going to the library or some other such thing, so their common room must be somewhere in there. I've spotted Hufflepuff students frequently using the door that leads down to the kitchens and as there are no classes that I know of down that, I suspect their common room must be somewhere in that vicinity. Finally, Ravenclaws, I've noticed, also go up to the fifth floor, you can spot them from the rails, although they take the moving stair across to the other side of the castle, so I suspect they're up in a tower, like Gryffindor Tower. They'll probably be the hardest to find, as there are seven towers and I only know three: Gryffindor Tower, the Owlery, and the North Tower, where we do Astronomy. That means I'll likely have to search the other four towers. It'll be fun. Wish me luck, journal.

Later

Success! I found all of the house common rooms and a little extra to boot, making for a very good morning and afternoon. I went looking for the Hufflepuff common room first, partially because I know that the network of corridors beyond the right side door from the main stair are less extensive than those on the left side, but partially because I recognized that Hufflepuff students are probably the least likely to hex me if they found me snooping around their common room door. Not that they had a door, so to speak, but I'll get into that. Anyway, I took the doorway leading down to the kitchens and then roamed the corridor. There were a few actual doors, but one was a broom closet, one seemed to be storage for seasonal decorations, and the other was the school care taker's quarters (luckily labeled, in peeling gold letters, so I didn't try to barge in on him). It isn't an exceptionally large corridor, all things considered. It dead ends, I noted, in an odd stack of barrels, which, upon closer inspection, only appear to be barrels, as they're fixed to the wall. This, I determined, had to be the entrance to the common room, in some way or form, as there was no other option for either what the barrels would be or where the common room could be. Wishing to know the secret, I entered the room of the holiday decorations, the last in the hall, shut the door and waited, lingering by it and listening to hear what my werewolf ears could tell me. It didn't take long for latecomers from breakfast to come round. I could hear them down the hall. When they passed my door, I cracked it, ever so slightly, and waited. The students were third years. As I expected, they stopped by the barrels and one of the three, a boy, pulled out his wand. I was expecting him to perform some sort of spell, but he didn't. Instead, he tapped his wand five times on one of the barrels (I couldn't see which one, as his body was between me and the barrels). The bottom barrel in the center just disappeared and the three Hufflepuff students crawled through. I'm not sure how I'd feel about a common room entrance that requires crawling, but I wasn't sorted into Hufflepuff and that's what happened. The barrel reappeared just seconds after the last student went through. I figured I'd give it a try, as it couldn't be too difficult, and the corridor was clear, so I went out of my storage room, pulled my wand, and guessing that the barrel that disappeared should be the one to be tapped, gave it a try. I tapped five times and was promptly doused in vinegar. This was not a reaction I was expecting. It was also rather smelly. Thinking quickly, as I couldn't go back through to entire castle to the Gryffindor Tower wet and reeking, I headed for the kitchens.

"Hullo," I said to the house elves when I entered. "Would you mind helping me wash up? I seem to have made a mess of myself." There was a cheerful chorus of agreement and before I knew it, I was undressed and wrapped in a large fluffy towel, while two elves scrubbed my hair. It was a little alarming, but I've spent enough full moons being helped into my clothes or being carried out of the cellar utterly naked to have too much modestly. They had a fast turnaround, too; I was clean, dry and back in completely laundered robes in a matter of minutes. I thanked the house elves and was back out into my decorations room as quick as can be. I waited once more, for more students to come along. It was a bit longer of a wait this time, but some finally did, two sixth year boys.

One of them sniffed the air. "Smell like someone got the pattern wrong," he said with a laugh.

"Probably one of the first years," the second answered. "I don't know why they always get it wrong. It's entirely too easy."

I paid careful attention, wanting to know what I had missed the last time. Was there, for instance, like in the wall that is the portal from the Leaky Cauldron to Diagon Alley, a specific place you needed to tap? But no, I figured it out the second time, when the second boy tapped five times, in the exact same cadence as the first. I thought for a moment, and realized that it was the cadence of the syllables of the name of Helga Hufflepuff. I waited for the boys to clear out and the barrels to seal behind him and then went out to try it again, being more careful to stand off to the side this time, just in case, as I did not want to be doused in vinegar again. The bottom middle barrel disappeared when I finished tapping, showing a low tunnel behind it. I considered going through, but it was just after breakfast, and I didn't know how long the tunnel was or what conditions it ended in, so that the prospect of finding myself abruptly dropped off in a full Hufflepuff common room was unappealing to me and I left it as it was. It closed after several moments of no one coming through.

I headed instead, towards the dungeons proper, where potions class is held. This was a little more challenging, as there are several corridors down this way and I didn't know which one the Slytherins resided in, except for the fact that I didn't think it was the same one as Professor Slughorn's classroom, as I would have noticed that coming and going from class. But, having no idea where to turn, and knowing that there were far more doors in these dungeons than were in the kitchen corridor, and I being quite thin, I decided to hide myself in one of the alcoves behind a suite of armor, just before the first turn off, and wait for the Slytherin students to show me the way themselves. I had to wait for a bit, but a few students came up, actually, leaving the dungeons from the left hand corridor, giving me my first bit of directions. I turned left, found a statue of a warty witch to hide behind in the next bit of corridor, where I could either know if the students came in or out of a door here or made another turn. I waited and soon, a girl alone came down, past my statue and made a right, turning the opposite way of Professor Slughorn's class. I waited until I could no longer hear her footsteps and turned right. Here, I situated myself behind another suit of armor and once again waited. There were no further turns ahead, so I knew it had to be one of the doorways in this section of the hallway, although they were surprisingly few. To my surprise, however, when students did come out, a group of fourth years, they came straight out of a section of open wall. When they were gone, I went and inspected the bit of wall, but it was nothing unusual. There were no hidden knobs or levers or anything, so of course, it had to be a spell, but I didn't know how to activate it. So, I planted myself behind my suit of armor again and waited for a Slytherin student to come by and show me how it was done. Unfortunately, the first to come by didn't seem to know how it was done, either.

It was Margie Stone, the least clever of the first year Slytherin girls. She walked up to the wall, declared "Superiority" in a loud voice and waited expectantly… for nothing to happen. She seemed perplexed, waiting a moment before loudly declaring again, "Superiority!" When nothing happened, she gave a humph and then started banging on the wall, yelling, "Superiority!" Still, nothing happened. Finally, she gave up and kicked the wall, promptly stubbing her toe. She hoped one foot for a moment, cursing loudly and then gave up, sat down and waited. It didn't take long for two of the other Slytherin first year girls to come by, Fiona McConnel and Nadine West (who, while being the opposite of Stone in terms of looks and personality, in which traits, while Stone is quite dull, are both the mean, catty sort of pretty girls that I learned to avoid in muggle parks).

"What are you doing sitting out here?" Fiona asked, rather contemptuously.

"I tried giving the password, but it wouldn't let me in," Margie answered.

"Oh really?" Nadine said.

"Yes, see," Margie said, standing up. "Superiority!" she yelled at the door.

Nadine snickered.

"Oh, Margie," Fiona said scathingly, "You really are such a useless dunce. The prefects have told us a dozen times, the password changes every Friday after dinner. It's 'tradition' now." As she said the word 'tradition' the wall opened up behind her.

"Oh, right," Margie said. "I feel so stupid."

"Probably because you are so stupid," Nadine answered. But together, the three girls went into the common room. The wall closed up behind them.

I had my answers for two out of three, but there had been a lot of waiting involved, and it was nearing lunch time. I decided I'd do lunch, first, and then explore the towers. I caught Lily and Severus in the entry hall, also heading to the Great Hall for lunch. Lily waved me over. "Hey," she said. "What have you been up to?"

I shrugged. "Just exploring," I said.

"Exploring what?" Severus asked.

"You know," I said. "Just around the castle." It didn't seem like a good idea to tell him that I'd spent over the last hour searching for his house common room. He seemed to find this answer acceptable and we headed for the great hall. We parted ways with Severus, heading for our house table, had a quick lunch, and then Lily left me to rejoin him. Apparently he was going to show her some cool new potions tricks he'd learned. I was just as glad to miss it, as it was unlikely I would have understood them anyway.

I went back up to our common room after lunch instead. I couldn't follow the Ravenclaws going to their own common rooms after lunch, of course, it would have been too easy for them to spot me on the open stairs. I would have to wait until people cleared out and try the towers one by one. There were a couple of third year boys practicing reading each other's tea leaves for divination, Isaiah Anchor and Silas Carpathian, so I sat and watched them for a while, waiting for the time to pass. They were kind enough to explain to me what they were supposed to be doing, but they didn't seem to be doing it very well in practice. It was interesting, though. When enough time had passed, I headed out again. I decided to go clockwise, bypassing the towers I knew of course. The first tower I explored seemed to end at a dead stop at the top of a staircase, but then I realized that there was a trap door overhead. I hesitated for a moment, then pulled the handle, which opened the door for a spindly silver ladder to drop down. I climbed the ladder to find at the top an odd sort of room, with cushy chairs, spindly tables, and all sorts of random wizarding implements. I recognized the large number of teapots and cups, as well as the crystal balls, and was able to identify the room as the likely site of the divination classroom. I left quickly, just in case the divination instructor was around to catch me in her room and then moved on to the next tower.

This one went a little less well for me. I went up the stair, which ended with two statues of gargoyles. It also ended with two people in front of me, the Headmaster, and a man I recognized from the papers as the Minister for Magic. The Headmaster turned to see me and smiled, looking pleasantly unsurprised. "Good afternoon, Mr. Lupin," he said.

I believe I turned red. "Good afternoon, Headmaster," I choked out. After all, my mother raised me to be polite. "Good afternoon, Minister Nolsen," I added. The Minister merely nodded back.

"What brings you here outside my office on this fine summer day?" the Headmaster continued. "I would think you would be outside, enjoying the grounds, Mr. Lupin."

"I'm sorry, Headmaster," I said, feeling myself turning even more red. "I was just trying to find out what's at the top of all the towers," I said, "In my free time," I added.

"Ah," the Headmaster said. "An admirable pursuit. I must ask you to run along now, though, Remus, I have important business with the Minister."

"Yes, of course, Headmaster," I said. "Right away." I promptly turned and headed back down the stairs.

"Ah," I heard the Headmaster declare behind me, addressing the Minister, "The adventurousness of youth." Then, somewhat bizarrely, he declared "Sherbet pips!" It must have been the password to get beyond the gargoyles, because it was followed by the sound of grinding stone. I didn't stay to listen for more, though.

I headed for the next tower. I followed a spiral staircase up and was rewarded with a door with a shiny, bronze eagle shaped knocker. This must be the Ravenclaw common room, I decided, as their colors are blue and bronze and the eagle is their mascot. I was uncertain what to do. Should I knock in a certain rhythm, like at the Hufflepuff entrance? Was there a password? I took the obvious option instead, and hid behind a nearby tapestry of unicorns. A group of Ravenclaw second years came up eventually, two boys and two girls. One boy stepped up to the door knocker and rapped it once, loudly.

"What is the difference between good and evil?" the door asked.

"Ooo, tough one," the other boys said.

"What is it?" the knocking boy asked the others.

"You're the one who knocked," the second boy answered. One of the girls giggled.

"Not fair," the non-giggly girl said to the second boy. "When you knocked earlier you got 'What path must a man always tread?' Much easier."

"What was the answer to that?" the second girl asked.

"The one he's on," the second boy said. The first girl scowled at him while the first boy gave him a plaintive look.

"Fine," the second boy said, "Since I don't want to be out here all day. But this one counts as mine on the score sheet. I'd guess the answer is 'right action.'"

"Aww… that was easy," the first boy groaned as the door opened.

"Yes, but you didn't know it," the second boy pointed out.

"I was expecting something more philosophical," the first boy said.

The second boy shrugged. "Still," he said. "It's my point."

The four of them entered the room. That was interesting, I thought, having to solve some sort of riddle or philosophical question to enter the common room. It would never work in Gryffindor, I thought. Peter would never make it inside. And Margie Stone, she ended up shut out of Slytherin with just a password.

I left my tapestry and headed back down the stairs, careful to listen for anyone coming up first, so I wouldn't be caught up there. Having achieved my goal for the day, though, I decided to go through with what I'd told the Headmaster I was doing, seeing what was at the top of each of the seven towers. It also made a decent sub-goal, I thought. I headed for the last set of stairs heading up from the fifth floor. They also lead to a spiral stair. I followed it up and it reached a dead end at a plain wooden door. There appeared to be no lock, but when I pushed and pulled on the door handle, it wouldn't budge. I tried my opening spell, but it wouldn't work and also my unlocking spell, but it didn't work, either. I've added getting into the locked room on the top of the seventh tower as a subsequent sub-goal on my goals list. It now looks something like this:

Remus John Lupin's First Year Goals List

1: Keep everyone from discovering you're a werewolf.

2: Learn all you can about werewolves.

3: Get at least straight E's in all of your classes.

4: Try not to alienate Lily.

5: Try not to alienate Sirius.

6: Try not to be murdered by or to murder James Potter.

7: Discover what is under the lake.

8: Learn about wizarding spy craft.

9: Explore Hogwarts Castle.

Sub-Goal: Discover the locations of all four common rooms.

Sub-Goal: Discover what's at the top of all seven towers.

Subsequent Sub-Goal: Discover how to enter the seventh tower.

I realize that "a locked room" might be an unsatisfying answer to the question, 'what's at the top of the seventh tower?' but I'm checking the second sub-goal off anyway. It's better than no answer at all, and discovering how to enter (and therefore, what is in) the locked room has been added to the list.

Overall, though, I think I had a good day exploring. I discovered a lot more than I set myself to do when I started, which is always the best thing to do. I also wrote my mum, since I told her I would once a week. I'll try to do so on Saturdays. I told her the good bits, of course, and left out all the bad. No need for her to worry for me.

September 12, 1971

The high table was draped in black this morning, when we found out that another former Defense against the Dark Arts Teacher, one Professor Ableshock, died in Azkaban yesterday. I was sitting between Lily and Brandon Tintagel when the announcement was made.

"What did he do to go to Azkaban?" Lily asked Brandon.

"He tried to rob a ministry warehouse," Brandon answered. "But his trial was really odd. There are a lot of people who think he was under the Imperious Curse."

"What's that?" Lily asked.

"It's a spell that lets you control people," I filled in. "It makes them do anything you tell them to do, whether they want to or not. It's very illegal."

"It's a life sentence in Azkaban if you're caught," Brandon added to it.

"Who would have put him under the Imperious Curse?" Lily asked.

"I dunno," Brandon said. "It's a dangerous world out there. We haven't had a Defense teacher last more than a year the entire time I've been here. Professor Winkley, my fourth year professor, was murdered in Borneo. Professor Ableshock, my second third year professor, died in Azkaban after spending a little over a year in for robbery. Professor Morgan, my second year professor, was eaten by werewolves. And Professor Merrythought, my first year professor, died of what was deemed to be a stroke, sitting at his desk, on the third to last day of term."

I froze at the words "eaten by werewolves," but Lily was far more interested in all of it.

"That's terrible luck," Lily said.

"Some think it's more than bad luck," Brandon said. "Some people are saying that the job is cursed."

"Who would want to curse it?" Lily asked.

"I dunno," Brandon said again. "Take your pick. It's a dangerous world at there. Not everyone wants you to be prepared for it."

I decided to take Brandon's words to heart. Lily had plans on the grounds with the girls, hoping to spot unicorns at the edge of the Forbidden Forest (they come out sometimes on nice afternoons), so I chose to go to the library, to look up defensive spells that I might learn. After all, as Brandon said, it's a dangerous world out there. And besides, just because James hasn't tried to kill me yet, doesn't mean he doesn't intend to. I've worked up a list of spells that look promising. I'll write more on them once I've winnowed them down. I'll write down a different list, though, that has been somewhat amended since it was last seen here. See item ten.

Remus John Lupin's First Year Goals List

1: Keep everyone from discovering you're a werewolf.

2: Learn all you can about werewolves.

3: Get at least straight E's in all of your classes.

4: Try not to alienate Lily.

5: Try not to alienate Sirius.

6: Try not to be murdered by or to murder James Potter.

7: Discover what is under the lake.

8: Learn about wizarding spy craft.

9: Explore Hogwarts Castle.

Sub-Goal: Discover the locations of all four common rooms.

Sub-Goal: Discover what's at the top of all seven towers.

Subsequent Sub-Goal: Discover how to enter the seventh tower.

10: Learn to defend yourself.

 **AUTHOR'S END NOTE:**

 **I make the door to Ravenclaw ask philosophical questions rather than riddles, as some people do, because there's a precedent for it in the text, and I don't really like riddles (Tom included, ha ha ha).**

 **The First War will slowly be building in intensity in the background of this fic (and perhaps those of other years, if I write that far). It is currently a vague and uncertain anxiety looming on the horizon for most students however. I set Voldemort's curse on the Defense against the Dark Arts job several years in advance of this, because I picture his attempt to gain a teaching position at Hogwarts as part of his recruiting plan (as well, of course, as part of his plot to place horcruxes) and I picture there being at least a year or two of recruiting, indoctrinating and training his followers before the actual violent actions began. I mean, come on here, we're talking about a man who managed to successfully place a Death Eater at Hogwarts and instead of doing the sane thing and having that Death Eater invite Harry Potter up for tea after class (as his teachers have on several occasions done) and then handing him a tea cup that's a port key that leads directly to Voldemort and Wormtail and their grave yard hoodoo (and then wandering down to the Great Hall and getting Dumbledore in the back with the Killing Curse while he's eating dinner, for good measure), he concocted an elaborate year-long plot around the Tri-Wizard Tournament that involved successfully fooling a powerful magical object into entering an underaged wizard as an unaffiliated fourth party, hoping that everyone agreed to go on like that, and then necessitating that said fourteen year old wizard not only survive every task, but actually win the bloody thing to complete the plot. After wasting the life of Barty Crouch, Jr., who could have easily killed Dumbledore in the entire year he spent pretending to be a teacher at Hogwarts, Voldemort also then spent an entire year forcing a sixteen year old school boy make feeble attempts at killing Dumbledore instead of telling Snape to do it (as he eventually does anyway), just because he was perturbed with the Malfoys and wanted to screw with them a little. Battlefield efficiency is definitely not Voldemort's strongest skill. One day I think I should write an AU fanfic about what might have happened in the Harry Potter universe if Voldemort wasn't utter crap at planning things. If you have thoughts on this, feel free to share.**

 **Also, if you have anything else to say, good, bad or indifferent, I'd be happy for reviews.**

 **Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.**


	6. September 13, 1971

**AUTHOR'S OPENING NOTE:**

 **Once again, and as always, in the spirit of Albus Dumbledore, everything I want to say is in the chapter's end note.**

September 13, 1971

Well, no one died in the last twenty-four hours, so there's that, but it's been a mixed sort of day. I'm telling this one in chronological order, because it needs to be, or else I'm going to leave things out and spend the whole entry covering Potions. We had Transfiguration first thing and Sirius actually got up at a reasonable hour to get there, which was helpful, and we've finally finished with our first set of notes and actually started spell practice as well, which was exciting. It's simple substantive transfiguration that we're working on now, changing one substance to another, essentially. We started with a simple exercise, turning a matchstick into a sewing needle, with mixed success. James was surprisingly good at it; he got results first and managed to do a fairly good job by the end of the class in creating a needle, he managed everything but the hole for the thread. I ended up with a bit of metal in the shape of a matchstick, as did Sirius, while Lily ended up with a wooden needle. Professor McGonagall said that these were encouraging results, though. Peter didn't get anything done, but that's unsurprising. Noreen and Mary didn't either, while Joan's matchstick just went slightly pointy. Marlene ended up with a weird metal-wood hybrid thing and of course, Eleanor didn't attempt it at all. We'll be practicing Wednesday and Thursday with this exercise as well, so we'll have a chance to perfect it, and hopefully Peter and the others will have a chance to get some results, before we move on to a more difficult exercise next week.

In History of Magic, we turned in our essays and did notes, from what we're told by the older students, all Professor Binns ever does is essays and notes, until the end of the year exam. I was the only one who actually took them the whole period, once again. We started our first set of notes in Charms, as well, just the basic terminology and theory, now that we've finished our first spell. Those notes got a bit more attention, though. There's a free period, lunch, and two more free periods on Mondays between Charms and Potions, however, so I went back to the common room with Lily after Charms, since I had nothing better to do. She was mostly chatting with Marlene. I sat on the couch next to them and nodded and smiled at what seemed like appropriate points, but my attention was between the game of wizarding chess being played by Brandon Tintagel and Darren Crawford, another fifth year boy, and on James Potter, who doesn't seemed to be able to take it when people aren't paying attention to him, and so was regaling the room, or anyone who would pay attention, with impressions of the school's staff. They were actually pretty good. His rendition of the caretaker was spot on. As it turns out, James can be legitimately funny when he isn't trying to hurt anyone.

Unfortunately, he's done a bit too much of trying to hurt people, putting the Gryffindor-Slytherin feud for the first years at a boiling point. Apparently, unbeknownst to the rest of us, except perhaps Sirius and Peter, who follow him like puppies, James used the later part of our lunch hour ambushing and hexing first and second year Slytherin students as they headed back towards the dungeons from the Great Hall. The Slytherin first years planned their retribution accordingly. They arrived early in Professor Slughorn's classroom for Potions, so that by the time we in Gryffindor got there, each two-man table had one Slytherin student sitting at it. Interestingly enough, Severus didn't appear to be in on it, as he entered around the same time we did and seemed just as surprised. He asked one of the Slytherin boys, Malcolm Naxton, to move, so he could get a table with Lily, and the boy told him, "I'd rather not, thanks. You don't need to be sitting with that mudblood anyway." That's when I knew it was going to get ugly. Severus turned red, Lily looked puzzled, and luckily no one else overheard because there probably would have been violence then and there over it. We were all still standing when the bell rang and Professor Slughorn came in. His face went from confused to uneasy quite quickly as he saw the situation, but nevertheless told everyone to take seats.

I took a spot next to the rather large and thuggish Vincent Mulciber, expressly so no one else would have to (I'm unusually tall, have superhuman strength and am accustomed to pain, all of which I thought would be helpful against him if things in class got ugly), while Professor Slughorn begun a set of notes on the potion we'll be attempting Friday, an anti-zit rinse. "Something many of you will be needing soon," he noted. I tried to pay attention to him and take adequate notes, while still listening in on the hisses of taunts now going around the class, low enough not to be heard past the table of the speaker, unless it's werewolf ears listening, of course. Still, it was a lot even for werewolf ears to manage. In the meantime, Mulciber started in on me. He started hissing "Hey dumbass," at me over and over. He stomped my foot under the table first, then punched me in the leg. Of course, my entire body breaks itself apart into a new shape and back once a month, a shape which in the time in between generally spends throwing itself at doors, windows and walls, so his attacks didn't bother me so much. There isn't a bone I haven't broken or a joint I haven't dislocated nearly. I know how to put all of my joints back in place, with all that personal experience, and conversely, I know how to take most of them out, too. He wasn't expecting it. He went to punch me again, aiming for my ribs this time, when I caught his hand with that unexpected (for him) werewolf strength and speed and pulled back on his fingers, against the angle of the joints. "You will sit still and you will be quiet or I will break every single one of your fingers," I hissed at him. He tried to wiggle away, but found that my grip was too strong, and that only makes it hurt more. He went still.

"I need that hand to write," he hissed back.

"You should have thought about that and kept it to yourself," I hissed back.

In the meantime, with my right hand, I kept writing, copying down everything on the chalkboard. I kept my ears on what was going on around me, though. Fiona McConnell, next to Lily, was explaining to her exactly what a mudblood was. Next to Mary, Karen Wilder was doing the same. Mary was already beginning to cry. James was scuffling under the table with Stuart Bellinger, while Sirius seemed be scrambling with Nestor Wyatt over the possession of his quill. Malcolm Naxton was doing something under the table to make Peter give little pig like squeals. Most of the girls were trading insults. Jane Maris had Noreen nearly in tears as well, telling her how stupid and ugly she was. Severus had ended up next to Nadine West, who was lecturing him on pureblood superiority and against associating with mudbloods. "I suppose your mother married a muggle, though," I heard her say, "So maybe being a blood traitor runs in the family." Things were mostly under wraps, or at least, being kept at a low enough level that Professor Slughorn either didn't notice or didn't care to notice.

That was until the point where runty Norman Avery, sitting next to Eleanor Stark, brought her father into the conversation. I was paying attention to Nadine and so I didn't catch the whole comment, but it ended with "end up like your father." This is how we reached the point in time where we all finally heard Eleanor Stark's voice. It was yelling out an incantation, as she promptly set Norman Avery on fire. I believe the incantation was "incendo." His chest burst into flames. Around them, the girls shrieked and moved away. This finally caught Professor Slughorn's attention. He yelled something and rushed forward to put Avery out. He fell flat on his face, though, heading towards him. There might have been a Trip Jinx involved, I believe. It might have been from Sirius. At least this is what I would gather from my knowledge of Latin, Sirius' furtive muttering of the word, "Claudeo" and Professor Slughorn's tumble to the ground. Norman Avery screamed as his chest burned. I could smell the meat cooking on him. It smelled glorious. (I can never let anyone read this.) Professor Slughorn got up, perhaps assuming that his fall had been an honest mistake in rushing to help one of his students. He doused the flames on Avery's chest, grabbed both him and Eleanor by the arms, one in each hand, and pulled them out of the room. He's surprisingly fast and strong for such a fat man. But then, I am surprisingly fast and strong for such a skinny boy.

There was a stunned sort of silence for a moment, before Anne Barnes said, "She'll be expelled."

"I have to say, I'm impressed by her fighting spirit," Sirius put in.

"Shut up, blood traitor," Malcolm Naxton said.

" _Shame of my womb_ ," Fiona McConnell said in a high pitched voice, quoting Sirius' mother's howler. A few of the Slytherins giggled.

Then chaos really broke loose. James and Stuart had stopped mid-scuffle, still locked together, to watch Norman Avery burn. James took Stuart's current inattention as an opportunity to slug him in the jaw. At the same time, Sirius attempted to throw a hex at Fiona McConnell, no doubt in response to the impression of his mother, but was stopped by Nestor Wyatt, who is rather thickly built, grabbing him around the neck to stop him. Vincent took the opportunity that these distractions caused to try to get away from me, but I held tight. "Sit still and be quiet or I will break all of your fingers," I repeated again softly. Clumsily, he made for his wand with his left hand. Swiftly, I pulled mine with my right and pointed it directly at his right eye. "That is a terrible idea," I told him. Honestly, the only thing I could have done with my wand that close to his eye was poke him in it, but he didn't know that. He went still and kept his mouth shut. I looked about. James and Sirius were both fighting with their respective seat mates, while what was going on between Malcolm and Peter wasn't so much as a fight rather than utter physical humiliation. He'd somehow gotten Peter's robes open in front and was holding his arms back one handed and slapping his fleshy stomach with the other hand while Peter squealed and teared up. Joan and Margaret Stone were pulling each other's hair. The other girls were exchanging insults. I was reminded quite vividly of The Lord of the Flies. Malcolm was even laughing and going, "Pig, pig, pig!" while he hit Peter.

After a couple minutes of this, Professor McGonagall rushed in. She stopped at the door, clearly shocked at the sight in front of her. Luckily, I was near the back and was able to lower my wand, release Mulciber's hand and promptly look innocent. Mulciber took up the same look. We must have looked terribly odd; we were the only two students still seated. "Stop this at once!" Professor McGonagall shrieked. Mary, Noreen and Peter were all crying, Peter with his robes open and his gut hanging out. Joan was crying as well, as Margaret had fistfuls of her hair. Stuart Bellinger's mouth was bleeding while Nestor Wyatt still had Sirius struggling to get out of a choke hold. At the sound of McGonagall's voice, everyone ceased. I won't go into the ten minutes of yelling that followed from Professor McGonagall, but it hurt my ears. The incident ended with James, Sirius, Joan, Stuart Bellinger, Nestor Wyatt, Malcolm Naxton, Margaret Stone, Karen Wilder, and Jane Maris being given detentions, tonight, cleaning the Great Hall after dinner and ten points from their respective houses each. She wouldn't hear James' objections that the Slytherins started it as, she rebutted, he should have reported it as soon as it began instead of turning it into an all-out brawl. Of course, James did actually start it ambushing students in the hall at the end of lunch period, but no one was going to say that now. Stuart also tried to object on the grounds that cleaning was for house elves. Professor McGonagall took another ten points from Slytherin for it. Since Potions was clearly over at this point (Professor Slughorn sent her down on his way up to the infirmary to keep order), she then sent us back to our common rooms. She made the Slytherins leave first (likely so we wouldn't just pick up the brawl again in the corridors), spent another five minutes lecturing us Gryffindors on our terrible behavior and then escorted us up to Gryffindor Tower herself. She told us we were all confined to the tower for the rest of the evening, except for dinner, and those who had detentions. That's where I am now.

It's still uncertain what has become of Norman Avery and Eleanor Stark.

I'm going to try to fill in from my potions book what I should have learned in class today, if I can manage to make heads or tails of it. This isn't what I thought school would be like at all.

 **AUTHOR'S END NOTE:**

 **Well, this happened.**

 **It's too bad that Hogwarts doesn't have school counselors. It might have done Harry some good around books five and six, among other people. Of course, the wizarding world doesn't seem to have psychiatric services in general, which explains more than it doesn't.**

 **Also, if you have anything to say, good, bad or indifferent, I'd be happy for reviews.**

 **Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.**


	7. September 14, 1971 to September 16, 1971

**AUTHOR'S OPENING NOTE:**

 **Once again, and as always, in the spirit of Albus Dumbledore, everything I want to say is in the chapter's end note.**

September 14, 1971

Oddly enough, it seems like Eleanor Stark was not expelled, as she was at breakfast this morning and every class thereafter throughout the day, although how she managed to pull that off, and what her punishment might be instead, no one knows, because she wouldn't answer anyone's questions about it. Lily heard from Severus that Norman Avery will be fine, though; he spent the night in the hospital wing and was released after breakfast this morning.

I don't really have much to talk about beyond that, though. It was a tense, quiet sort of day. We had notes in Charms and Defense against the Dark Arts and Herbology, where we'll be starting a new plant, soon, but for now we just did a lesson that seemed to be a very jumbled and not very scientific version of photosynthesis (the word itself was never used, but I learned about it in science lessons with my mother), with some magic added, explaining how magical plants gain energy to thrive. We're still waiting on astronomy.

I suppose besides that, I finally got drawn into the quidditch team conversation that my dad prepared me for, with Sirius and James and Peter in our dorm room while waiting for dinner. The three of them were hiding out in there because they were afraid that they'd be ambushed by Slytherins if they went about in the corridors (such Gryffindor courage they have, after all) and because Paul Howard had thrown them out of the common room for being too rowdy, after James saw the post for the house Quidditch team tryouts and basically through a tantrum about first years not being allowed to play, despite the fact that all of us were aware of this already. Jonathan Vale, the seventh year Quidditch Captain, was having none of this and told James that he wouldn't want a whiny, attention-seeking little midget of a trouble maker on his team anyway, even if he was a second year or a third year or a fourth year or a fifth year or a sixth year or even a seventh year. James drew up as if to fight him, titchy little James against a toweringly tall, quite fit seventh year Quidditch Captain, but Sirius wisely held him back. That's when Paul Howard sighed and told them to vacate the common room. Paul Howard seems to do a lot of sighing around us first years, from what I've seen. It seems he thought I was with them, too, although we were sitting a table apart, because he gave me a stony look until I opted to follow them up.

In the dormitory, James was going on about how he would be the best Quidditch player Vale had ever seen, he'd show him. Then Sirius pointed out that it would be difficult to show him, as first years weren't even allowed brooms at school. James then got shirty with Sirius, but it dissolved somehow into a discussion of quidditch, which is where I got pulled in, with James, who worships all things Quidditch, launching the inquisition against me about it after a few moments of going through league team standings with Sirius. It seems like not picking the Magpies was a good idea, as that's Peter's favorite team and James ended up mocking Peter for only liking the team with the best record, which is the obvious choice for people who have no taste and know nothing about Quidditch. Sirius favors the Falcons while James favors the Tornados. I told them I liked the Catapults because they have a tradition of excellent seekers, including Dai Llewellyn, who 'is a personal hero of mine' (which might have been a slight exaggeration, although I do very much appreciate the ward named for him at St. Mungos, not that I could say as much), and because I appreciate their spirit of innovation and the fact that you can never anticipate the outcomes of their matches beforehand, making them interesting and exciting to follow. I also told him that I'm a partisan to Wales, despite being English born, as we've lived in or near Wales several times and these were my favorite places to live. James actually seemed satisfied by this answer. He asked me if I played and I decided to keep things simple and tell him no, because my parents couldn't afford a broom. Dad travels everywhere by apparition, which is free. James snorted at this. "Your family doesn't own a single broom?" he said, like this was the most absurd thing he'd ever heard, but I shrugged and he let it go. He's been debating ever since with Sirius and Peter which of their teams is the best this year (mine isn't, I know, so I didn't join) and they've been doing this for like an hour, while I finally gave up listening to them and wrote out all this.

Oh well, we've got Astronomy soon. I'll pick up again tomorrow.

September 15, 1971

A rundown of the day: in Transfiguration, we've begun a new practical, this time turning tortoise shells into tea cups, to mixed results across the room. I mostly did well enough, although my porcelain had a tortoise shell pattern. James and Sirius are both quite good at Transfiguration, I might note, to be fair: James produced a perfectly ordinary undecorated white tea cup, while Sirius actually put a floral pattern on his. We had notes in History of Magic on the efforts of the Department of International Magical Cooperation to keep the wizarding world uninvolved with the plethora of muggle wars that were taking place in the early eighteenth century, mostly against France and Spain, in line with the early formation of the Ministry, which was particularly complicated by the fact that neither France nor Spain had moved to a bureaucratic system yet. I found the subject interesting, particularly since I've learned all of the muggle history involved, although of course Professor Binns' teaching is quite bland.

In my break between History and lunch, I went up to the library and searched for a book. I've decided to continue the werewolf research after all. I picked out The Compendium of Accounts of Werewolf Attacks for reading, in the hopes that it might give me some hint as to why it was me who was chosen to be attacked. I read a bit of it, waiting for lunch, but didn't get very far. It's quite gruesome in the detail, with the accounts varying by perspective, sometimes bystanders who witness the attacks, sometimes the survivors of the attacks, sometimes the law enforcement officers and werewolf catchers who arrived afterward to clean up the mess. I feel like it's going to be rather a slog getting through as parts of it hit painfully close to my own memories. I'll see if I derive anything useful from it, though.

In Herbology, we're working on something called the Spectroscopic Prickly Tassel, a nineteenth century discovery, imported from the rainforests in the Congo. Its name is rather uninspired, as it of course, has a lot of prickly dangly bits, rather like tassels. It isn't dangerous; getting pricked just makes the affected region turn random colors for a few hours. We had a few minutes of notes and then we were instructed on pruning the ventral tassels, where they wouldn't get enough light and just stifle the growth of the plant by remaining (tying in with our notes from yesterday) and were set to work, three to a plant. Lily and I worked three to a plant, with Tracey Finch, who, I was pleased to note, is a cousin of Scott Finch, the Fumble-Fingered Keeper of my theoretically supported Quidditch team. She seemed happy that I was a fan, as most people, she said, made fun of her about him, always teasing her about dropping things. She ended up spending a lot of the time explaining some of the finer points of Quidditch to Lily, as this seems to not be a subject Severus ever covered with her. On the topic of the Spectroscopic Prickly Tassel, though, using gloves was optional, since the plant isn't dangerous (although the pricking of course feels like getting pricked by any other plant), so I opted not to, to get the full effect, and my hands and forearms were covered in splotches of purple and orange and blue through dinner time. Apparently it's used in color changing potions, to great effect.

In Potions, Professor Slughorn seemed to want to take no chances. He had the class divided down the middle and put Slytherin on one side and Gryffindor on the other. I took my usual place with Sirius before I thought about it, in front of James and Peter, rather than beside them, as we were confined to one side of the room, leaving Lily rather unfortunately stuck sitting next to Eleanor in front of us. Professor Slughorn very specifically ordered Eleanor to the front row and no one else wanted to sit with her, so when Lily arrived at the last minute with Severus, she was forced to take that spot. It seems I wasted my time Monday writing out the notes we were supposed to be given from the book, though, as Professor Slughorn just gave the whole set over again.

A bit more that was interesting: at dinner, where I scarfed down three pork chops and a healthy portion of mashed potatoes, as well as a piece of chocolate cake, James, who was sitting across the table from me with Sirius and Peter, commented, "How come you eat so much and still are such a skinny little stick, Remus?" (He, of course, did not mean it in any way that was flattering.) I mentally kicked myself for so obviously standing out, but on the outside, I shrugged and said, "I guess I have a fast metabolism." "A what?" James answered. It seems whatever education his parents gave him had nothing to do with science and he had no idea what that was, and neither did Sirius and Peter, so I spent quite a bit of time trying to explain it to them, which was quite difficult, given that none of them even had a rudimentary understanding of the digestive system, besides the fact that food goes in and waste eventually comes out, with the stomach involved somewhere in the middle. James and Sirius didn't even know what intestines were. I repeat: JAMES AND SIRIUS DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT INTESTINES WERE. Peter only had the vaguest idea because sometimes his mum apparently makes her own sausage (Sirius and James were both shocked and appalled, by the way, to discover how sausage is made and Sirius has sworn never to eat it again… we'll see how long that lasts, although he's always preferred bacon, anyway.). Their ignorance was astounding. A lot of the muggle born students nearby ogled them, catching our conversation, equally astounded by the appalling state of their educations. But in their defense, some of the pureblood students around as also caught the conversation and gave it a listen, because they didn't know, either! But then, the wizarding world has utterly no education requirements before Hogwarts and it is apparently considered satisfactory if students have grasped the merest fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic before coming on to school. That is, apparently, all some of them know. The thing is, though, while those of us with some or a complete muggle upbringing were astounded, the ones who had no idea just shrugged it off. Not only are they ignorant, they don't know they're ignorant, and they don't care that they're ignorant. Perhaps it comes from living around magic, which isn't easily explained, that they don't expect anything else to have explanations, either? I'm not sure I can understand that worldview. And perhaps, I think, I should give a second thought to continuing my common educational studies here at Hogwarts, like my mother desires. I added it to my goals' list. It now looks something like this:

Remus John Lupin's First Year Goals List

1: Keep everyone from discovering you're a werewolf.

2: Learn all you can about werewolves.

3: Get at least straight E's in all of your classes.

4: Try not to alienate Lily.

5: Try not to alienate Sirius.

6: Try not to be murdered by or to murder James Potter.

7: Discover what is under the lake.

8: Learn about wizarding spy craft.

9: Explore Hogwarts Castle.

Sub-Goal: Discover the locations of all four common rooms.

Sub-Goal: Discover what's at the top of all seven towers.

Subsequent Sub-Goal: Discover how to enter the seventh tower.

10: Learn to defend yourself.

11: Continue proper academic studies while at Hogwarts.

I seem to add things much faster than I can get them done. Although to be fair, I suppose, at least five of them are long term objectives (items 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6) that would be complete until the school year is done, so there is that.

I think I'll read a bit more of that book now, in reference to item 2.

September 16, 1971

Today officially marks two weeks' worth of classes; too bad Thursday is the longest day of classes we have, with Transfiguration, History, Defense against the Dark Arts, Double Herbology, and Astronomy. It doesn't help that I stayed up far later than I should have reading last night. Anyway, it's easiest to talk about classes first, so, in Transfiguration, we worked on the tortoise shells into teacup bit again, to better results: I had not shell patterns on my cup this time. Also, Professor McGonagal gave us an essay on design in simple substantive transfiguration, which I'll do over the weekend. In History, we continued notes on abroad's efforts to keep us out of the continental wars in the early-to-mid eighteenth century. We've got another essay on why that was considered so important, which I'm also saving for the weekend. In Defense against the Dark Arts, we did more history notes: we've reached the Roman Hegemony, the rise of which coincided with the rise of the Roman Empire, rather than the Roman Republic and are discussing some of the developments in the dark arts and some of the threats from the dark arts that the Hegemony contended with, which I find exciting, because as the empire expands, we cover dark wizardry from different regions, as encountered and written about by the Romans, since many other European cultures at the time weren't literate. James and Peter hate it, as they know nothing about history, either muggle or wizarding (and knowledge of muggle history certainly does help, because no matter what wizards might claim, wizarding history and society runs parallel to that of muggles), they have no desire to know anything about history, and they think it's a waste of time that Professor Gamp is giving us a history lectures, in addition to the ones that we're already getting in History of Magic (despite the fact that the two classes are covering totally different time periods and events and have entirely different focuses for learning), when we could be learning actual practical defense. Sirius is a little less adamant in hating it; it seems his highly traditional pureblood parents did see fit to give him some education in magical history before coming to school and he's aware of the basics of the Hegemony, and the conflicts of Roman wizardry in Judea, North Africa, France and Britain, which are generally considered the most major of the conflicts. He just finds it somewhat tedious. Lily, at least, is fascinated and tells me that she wishes that Professor Binns taught more like Professor Gamp, then History of Magic Might be much more worthwhile as a subject. Needless to say, I prefer to sit next to her, although generally speaking, I end up between her and Sirius in a great many classes. In Herbology, we replanted several rows of Spectroscopic Prickly Tassels as a class, meaning I ended out our early lessons with red and orange and purple and green and yellow and blue arms. I was much more colorful today than last time. I wonder what the mechanism is for determining what color it turns you?

I am, of course, still waiting on Astronomy.

In my breaks during the day, I spent my time reading The Compendium of Accounts of Werewolf Attacks. I have to admit, I ended up engrossed in it, in a sickly fascinated sort of way. I stayed up way later than I should have last night reading it, too, such that I ended up finishing it shortly after dinner. I found a sort-of answer to my question of 'why me?' Several of the accounts given are from the interrogations of werewolves who actually perpetrated the attacks (before the Ministry terminated them, of course) and an unduly high percentage of those were werewolves who attacked young children. In three of those accounts, the interrogator asks the wolf why he (another fact I learned: male werewolves are far more likely than female werewolves to survive long term, although the books I've read doesn't really give an explanation why, but all three of the wolves in question in this case were male) chose the victims they did. Every single one of them answered exactly the same thing: that human flesh is the greatest, the sweetest thing that they had ever tasted, and that children taste best of all, the younger they are, the sweeter, the more tender the meat. I was only four, after all. I wonder, how do people get to be like that, though, so callous that they're willing to hunt children for the taste of them. I understand that the wolf is hungry, that the wolf desires to eat people, I feel that way, too, when I am one, but I stay locked up at the full moon. I would never, ever contemplate not doing so. I know that even as a man, people still spell like they're food, like I believe I wrote, the smell of Norman Avery's burning flesh was delicious. But I've never actually seriously contemplated cannibalism as anything other than abhorrent. To go out, as a man, and intentionally seek prey to satisfy the monster: I don't understand that. Were these men just always evil and coincidentally they became werewolves as well? Or did the years and years of longing and hunger turn them so that hunting people, hunting children, seemed like a viable and appropriate option? Worst of all, could that happen to me one day? These aren't thoughts I enjoy contemplating, so I tried to put it all out of my mind, too little success, as I took the book back to the library.

I found Lily in the common room after I returned it and joined her, where she was sitting, vaguely watching something James was doing in the corner, impressions perhaps, I wasn't really paying attention to him. My mind was on rather darker things.

"James Potter wants to grow up to be the next Godfric Gryffindor," she told me. "He's been telling the whole common room."

"I've heard that from him, yes," I answered.

"What do you want to be?" she asked me then, somewhat randomly.

I thought for a moment. "A gentle man," I answered.

"Huh," she answered. "Well, I haven't really heard anyone stress the chivalric aspect of this House as the one thing to aspire to yet, but-"

"No," I corrected. "A _gentle_ man."

She looked a bit confused. I can't blame her, really, in retrospect, it was such an odd thing to say, and it isn't like I could give her the context for it. "Oh," she said. "I see." Then she added, "You know, you're a strange boy, Remus Lupin."

I could feel myself start to blush. I don't want the closest thing I have to a friend deciding that I'm too weird to be around. I tried to stammer something, but I couldn't think of how to correct the mistake. It's not like I've spent a lot of time in my life talking to people my own age, after all.

She just looked amused at my stammering. "But not in a bad way," she added. "I rather like it."

"Oh," I said. "Thanks." As an afterthought, I added, "What do you want to be?"

"I dunno," she said. "I rather like botany, though, so maybe something with that."

"Botany or herbology?" I asked.

She laughed. "It's silly they have a different word for it, isn't it?"

I smiled and shrugged, "I suppose," I said.

"Both, I guess," she said, "I enjoy working in the gardens with my mum; she loves flowers, as you might have guessed from what she named me and Petunia. My favorite are her roses; they're her favorite, too. I wonder sometimes why she didn't name either of us Rose. But I like the magical plants we work with here in Herbology, too. So maybe I could do both, grow the magical plants for potions ingredients and such and then flowers, too, and have a shop that sells them both. Wizards need flowers, too, after all. Everyone needs flowers."

I can imagine Lily growing up and owning a flower shop one day. It would fit her perfectly; she'd be brilliant at it. It made me wish I'd said something a little less mental in answer to the question, but of course, while there are a lot of things I might fantasize about being when I grow up, I know they mostly aren't practical. Who is going to ever hire a werewolf, after all?

 **AUTHOR'S END NOTE:**

 **If you think I'm exaggerating too much on the pre-Hogwarts educations received by most wizards, remember, Ron's education, as presented in the books, is such utter crap that he honestly thought it might be plausible that Europa could be covered in mice and fails, at the Quidditch World Cup, to recognize the significance of the Dark Mark. I don't know a high school freshman in the US who wouldn't say, recognize a swatstika and associate it with the atrocities of Nazi Germany, and I consider this basically the equivalent of being a student living in Germany in 1958 and not recognizing the significance of a swastika, because the Death Eaters were** _ **functioning in Ron's own country just thirteen years before**_ **. You might blame this own Ron, but Ron is presented as being of average intellect. You might blame this on the early education provided by Molly Weasley, but considering the academic success of Bill, Charlie, Percy, and Ginny, I'd guess that the early education provided to them by Molly was entirely adequate by wizarding standards, but that wizarding standards are simply atrocious. If you have thoughts on this matter, I'd enjoy hearing about them in reviews.**

 **Also, if you have anything else to say, good, bad or indifferent, I'd be happy for reviews.**

 **Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.**


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